The Beginning of the World in Renaissance Jewish Thought

Supplements to The Journal of

Jewish Thought and Philosophy

Edited by

Elliot R. Wolfson (University of California, Santa Barbara)

Christian Wiese (University of Frankfurt)
Hartwig Wiedebach (University of Zurich)

VOLUME 27

The titles published in this series are listed at brill.com/sjjt

The Beginning of the World in
Renaissance Jewish Thought
Ma’aseh Bereshit in Italian Jewish Philosophy and
Kabbalah, 1492–1535

By

Brian Ogren

LEIDEN | BOSTON
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Names: Ogren, Brian, author.

Title: The beginning of the world in Renaissance Jewish thought : Ma’aseh
 bereshit in Italian Jewish philosophy and kabbalah, 1492–1535 / by Brian
 Ogren.
Description: Leiden ; Boston : Brill, [2016] | Series: Supplements to the
 Journal of Jewish thought and philosophy ; 27 | Includes bibliographical
 references and index.
Identifiers: LCCN 2016031161 (print) | LCCN 2016031897 (ebook) | ISBN
 9789004330627 (hardback : alk. paper) | ISBN 9789004330634 (E-book)
Subjects: LCSH: Creation—Early works to 1800. | Allemanno, Johanan ben
 Isaac, approximately 1435–approximately 1504—Criticism and
 interpretation. | Abravanel, Isaac, 1437–1508—Criticism and
 interpretation. | León, Hebreo, approximately 1460—Criticism and
 interpretation. | Pico della Mirandola, Giovanni, 1463–1494—Criticism and
 interpretation. | Jewish philosophy—Italy—History—15th century. |
 Jewish philosophy—Italy—History—16th century. |
 Cabala—Italy—History—15th century. | Cabala—Italy—History—16th
 century. | Creation in rabbinical literature.
Classification: LCC BS651 .O37 2016 (print) | LCC BS651 (ebook) | DDC
 296.3/409024—dc23
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2016031161

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 ‫לשמולדז שלי‪ ,‬באהבה רבה‪:‬‬
‫“ראשית חשקי ואהבתי כולה בחכמה‪”.‬‬
‫—יוחנן אלימנו‪ ,‬שיר המעלות לשלמה‪217 ,‬‬

‫∵‬
Contents

Acknowledgements IX

Introduction: In the Beginning 1

PART 1
Bereshit—The Wisdom of the Beginning

1 On the Wisdom of Language—Yohanan Alemanno on the Word of God

and the Simulacrum of Creation 25

2 On the Wisdom of Christ—Giovanni Pico della Mirandola on the Truth

of the Son and the Creation of the World 44

3 On the Wisdom of Angels—Isaac Abravanel on the Separate Intellects,

Bodies, and the Garments of Creation 60

4 On the Wisdom of Beauty—Leone Ebreo on Art and Creation 77

PART 2
Tohu Va-Vohu—Astounding and Substantial Beginnings

5 Hylomorphic Time—Yohanan Alemanno on Form, Matter, and the Days

of Creation 99

6 Edifices and Days—Giovanni Pico della Mirandola on Formation,

Teshuvah, and the Return to Christ 117

7 Ex-Nihilo Creation—Isaac Abravanel on the Formation of the World,

Evil, and Peace 134

8 Chaos and Divine Spirit—Leone Ebreo on Greek Mythology, Jewish

Lore, and the Gendered Creation of the Universe 151
viii Contents

Concluding Remarks: On Sources and Influences in Relation to

“The Beginning” 169

Bibliography 181
Index 191
Acknowledgements

Beginnings, as I attempt to show throughout this book, are processes of com-

ing forth into creation that are characterized simultaneously by both continu-
ity and rupture. In that regard, it is apt to note that this book itself began as an
outgrowth from my previous book on reincarnation. While researching for that
project, I noticed that when discussing the cyclical nature of life, many of the
late fifteenth and early sixteenth century figures whom I was exploring also
discussed ideas of the cyclical nature of creation. This led me to further explo-
rations, which ultimately led to the realization that at least four major thinkers
of the period wrote extensively about concepts of creation and the beginning
of time, and all four drew on similar kabbalistic and philosophical sources. All
four were also parts of overlapping intellectual circles. This book is about those
four thinkers concerning the creation of the world and the beginning of time,
namely, Yohanan Alemanno, Giovanni Pico della Mirandola, Isaac Abravanel,
and Judah Abravanel (better known as Leone Ebreo).
In regard to the similar sources utilized by these thinkers and the overlap of
ideas and of intellectual circles, I make the claim toward the very end of this
book on beginnings that texts are often transindividual fields of production
that elude any one single, clear-cut point of beginning. This makes it difficult,
if not outright impossible, to point to any one single author as the originator of
specific ideas. Inasmuch as this applies to the authors being examined here, it
would be incongruous of me at best not to admit that it also applies to the case
of this present book itself. Many of the ideas presented in this book spring
from long lines of tradition converging in the writings of the four authors being
treated. Without Alemanno, Pico, Abravanel and Ebreo, this book would not
exist, and thus, in a fairly unconventional manner, it is to them that I offer the
first order of acknowledgment.
Beyond my conversations with those who have long been dead, the idea of
turning my explorations into late fifteenth century Italian Jewish thought on
the beginning into a book length study began in casual conversation with will-
ing and insightful living interlocutors. Daniel Abrams provided me with an
attentive ear in the halls of the Jewish National and University Library. Brian
Copenhaver suggested perceptive viewpoints during the time that he genially
hosted me as a fellow at the Center for Medieval and Renaissance Studies at
UCLA. Hava Tirosh-Samuelson unwaveringly offered sound advice over meals
and coffee at various meetings of the Association for Jewish Studies and the
American Academy of Religion. Christia Mercer offered new perspectives on
Platonic philosophy during our time together in the beautiful hills of Florence.
x Acknowledgements

I am grateful to all of these conversation partners for encouraging me to push

forward with my research and ideas, even, at times, in the face of seeming
opposition and resistance.
Jonathan Garb has been incredibly supportive throughout, intellectually,
emotionally, and practically. Perhaps more than anyone, he has shown me the
way of simultaneous continuity and rupture that marks the notion of begin-
ning, and has helped me to transition from Israeli academia to (what are now
not-so) new beginnings in American university life. My gratitude toward and
respect for him are immeasurable.
Fabrizio Lelli has been my closest and most fitting conversation partner
throughout. His incredible breadth and depth of knowledge never cease to
amaze, and his willingness to give erudite feedback is always unfailing. He
offered some very important insights into several parts of this present work.
James Nelson-Novoa read an early draft of the portions dealing with Leone
Ebreo, and Moshe Idel offered some very important early feedback on the bulk
of the manuscript that saved me from some grave errors. Elliot Wolfson kindly
took the time and effort to carefully read through the entire manuscript in its
more finalized form and suggested some invaluable modifications. I am grate-
ful to all of these consummate scholars for helping to hone what now stands
before the reader.
Research began on this book during my time in Jerusalem as a fellow of the
Shlomo Pines Foundation, and it began to be formed during my time as a fel-
low of the Italian Academy for Advanced Studies of Columbia University. It
was brought to completion during my time at Villa I Tatti, the Harvard
University Center for Italian Renaissance Studies in Florence Italy. I thank all
of these institutions for the time made available to me and for the financial
support offered.
My colleagues in the Department of Religion at Rice University have been
extremely supportive of my intellectual endeavors. Special mention should be
made of my two Department Chairs since I have been at Rice: Jeffrey Kripal
afforded me the opportunity to organize the 2013 Rockwell Symposium on
time and eternity in Jewish mysticism, which helped to solidify some of the
theoretical foundations for this book (especially chapter five). April DeConick
kindly and willingly helped me to procure a year-long academic leave of
absence in order to take up residence at Villa I Tatti and to conclude this book.
My gratitude also extends to Nicolas Shumway, Dean of Rice University’s
School of Humanities, who enthusiastically encouraged me to apply for the
fellowship at Harvard’s Villa I Tatti and who graciously accommodated the
leave of absence that allowed me to bring this book to completion.
Acknowledgements xi

Several Mosle Research Awards allowed for the acquisition of supplies, such
as copies of rare fifteenth century Hebrew manuscripts, as well as for impor-
tant research trips.
The Jewish National and University Library in Jerusalem has been an invalu-
able resource, as has the adjacent Institute of Microfilmed Hebrew Manu-
scripts. Oxford Bodleian Library, the Bibliothèque nationale de France, the
JNUL in Jerusalem, the Jewish community of Mantova, and the Staatsbibliothek
of Berlin all made important manuscripts readily available to me. I would also
like to mention ILLiad (the interlibrary loan program of Rice’s Fondren
Library), which has been a saving grace to me. Parts of chapter five were pub-
lished in condensed form in a chapter entitled “Chaotic Beginnings: Yohanan
Alemanno on the Time of Creation,” in Time and Eternity in Jewish Mysticism:
That Which is Before and That Which is After (Brill, 2015). Here those parts are
expanded and more fully developed according to the context of the present
work.
I would be remiss not to mention my Mother-in-Law, Maya Karni, who not
only hosted me and generously fed me during some of my research trips to
Israel, but who also took care of my two girls, thus giving me invaluable time
to write.
My daughter Danielle has taught me more about new beginnings than any-
one.  She was born toward the beginning of the actual writing of this book, and
she turned three right around the time of its completion.  She continues to
show me the wonder and amazement of the discovery of new beginnings. It is
neither easy nor simple to find the time for research and writing while being
fully engaged in the raising of a child. And after a year in Italy of her being at
home with Mimi and Abskush, we are all very ready for her to start a new
beginning in preschool (including Daldul herself, who often requests the com-
pany of other children). That being said, I would trade neither the time that I
have been able to spend with her nor my involvement in her rearing for the
world (or for all of the secrets of its beginnings).
Finally to my wife Sharon: You are my best friend and my partner in creation
and in life; or in the terms of the thinkers being discussed here, you are my
second partzuf (or persona). I imagine that by now you are sick of hearing
about Alemanno, Pico, Abravanel and Leone, but one final point: These authors
maintain, in a nutshell, that true love, which derives from desire, is constituted
by union, and that such union constitutes the real beginning of creation. 
If this is so, then we are already masters of the beginning.  We have created a
life together in unity; and though it has not always been easy (and in fact has
often been challenging), we have also experienced (and created) many new
xii Acknowledgements

beginnings together.  May we continue to do so.  ‘Thankful’ does not even begin
to express how I feel about our partnership. For all of our old and new begin-
nings, it is to you that this book is dedicated, from desire, with love, and in
wisdom.

Florence, Italy
Villa I Tatti
May 2016
Introduction: In the Beginning

In his magisterial late fifteenth century Mif’alot Elohim, the famed Jewish
Iberian exegete Isaac Abravanel, who was already living and writing in Italy,
remarked: “It is suitable for someone who has come forth from nothing and
has existed after complete privation to have a nature to return to the nothing
and privation from which he was taken. The nature of all things is circular,
to return, each thing to the place from which it came.”1 In the same passage,
Abravanel went on to state: “Behold, the creation of the world and its rege­
neration are Torah in truth.”2 In a strikingly similar vein, the great Italian
Christian philosopher and kabbalist Giovanni Pico della Mirandola wrote in
his Commento sopra una canzone d’amore of 1486 that “felicity is none other
than reaching one’s highest good and ultimate end, and the ultimate end of
everything is the same, namely, its own first beginning.”3 Similar to Abravanel,
Pico was writing this regarding circular notions related to Proclean concepts
of procession and return and to Talmudic and kabbalistic ideas of time and
eternity.4

1  Isaac Abravanel, Mif’alot Elohim, with introduction and comments by Bracha Ganut-Dror
(Jerusalem: Reuven Mass, 1988), 166–167: ‫מי שיצא מן האין והיה אחר ההעדר הגמור ראוי‬
‫שיהיה לו טבע שב אל האין וההעדר אשר ממנו לוקח טבע כל הדברים הוא סבובי לשוב כל דבר‬
‫אל המקום שבא ממנו‬
2  Ibid., 167: .‫הנה בריאת העולם וחדושו תורה באמת‬
3  Giovanni Pico della Mirandola, Commento sopra una canzone d’amore a cura di Paolo De
Angelis, (Palermo: Novecento, 1994), 51: . . . la felicità non è altro che pervenire al suo sommo
bene e ultimo fine, e quell medesimo è ultimo fine d’ogni cosa che è suo primo principio.
Here the translation is mine, in order to preserve the sense of the importance of the “first
beginning” for Pico. For an alternative translation, see: Giovanni Pico della Mirandola,
Commentary on a Canzone of Benivieni, translated by Sears Jayne (New York, Berne and
Frankfurt am Main: Peter Lang, 1984), 110–111.
4  Here I refer to the philosophical side of Pico’s ideas in this specific context as “Proclean,” and
here and throughout I am careful not to use the term “Neoplatonism” in regard to any of the
Renaissance thinkers being discussed. As Christia Mercer of Columbia University has made
clear to me in personal conversation and in a seminar that she gave at Harvard’s Villa I Tatti in
the fall of 2015, Neoplatonism is a highly problematic term. It was originally a derogatory term
first popularized by Johann Jakob Brucker in his Historia Critica Philosophae (1742–1767) and
utilized by German Idealist thinkers to designate what they deemed to be a perverted form of
pure Platonism. The thinkers being discussed here, including Pico, did not see themselves as
“Neoplatonists.” Rather, they saw themselves as continuing the traditions of Plato, sometimes
as read through Plotinus, Proclus, pseudo-Empedocles, or other commentators, and in a
syncretic manner alongside Aristotle and the rabbinic tradition, as well as other sources.

© koninklijke brill nv, leiden, ���6 | doi ��.��63/9789004330634_002

2 introduction

For both Abravanel and Pico, “the creation of the world” and the “first begin­
ning” were extremely important. For Abravanel, it was “Torah in truth,” while
for Pico, it represented the highest good and was fundamentally tied to felic­
ity. For both thinkers the ultimate end of every thing is its very beginning.
For Abravanel, this is a reflection of the very nature of all things as ultimately
expressed through Torah, while for Pico, it is ultimately tied to a sense of felic­
ity that he later equates with Christ.5 For both of these thinkers, the enigmatic
“first beginning” that seems to be cyclically synonymous with the “ultimate
end” is cosmic in nature and relates to the beginning of creation, cast by both
thinkers in philosophical and mystical terms.
The remarkable similarities between Abravanel and Pico regarding the
inscrutable beginning that is simultaneously the final goal of creation do not
seem to be mere coincidence. Moreover, as we will see throughout this book,
Pico and Abravanel were not alone in their preoccupation with notions of the
beginning that draw upon philosophical, Talmudic and kabbalistic sources.
Indeed, they were part of a cohort of thinkers who variously utilized Jewish
tradition to deeply ponder such concepts. One of the other thinkers to enter
into such paths of thinking was one of Pico’s kabbalistic teachers who was
a prolific author in his own right, Yohanan Alemanno. Another was a famed
philosopher who wrote in Italian and who had a profound impact on western
philosophical and literary thought, Abravanel’s eldest son Judah, better known
as Leone Ebreo.6 The present study will focus on this precise cluster of four
consummate thinkers: Alemanno, Pico, Abravanel, and Ebreo. In doing so, it
will seek to offer an intellectual history of Renaissance preoccupations with
“the beginning” in relation to Jewish thought, and it will attempt to flesh out
the implications of such preoccupations for understanding a new beginning
in intellectual history.
All four of these thinkers deeply pondered questions of the beginning in
relation to creation and all turned to philosophical and kabbalistic traditions

The thinkers discussed here were indeed syncretists, and they utilized what they knew
in ways that worked for their various systems of thought. For the purposes of clarity, it is
thus best to be as accurate as possible with the use of descriptive and attributive labels.
I thank Christia for making me aware that Neoplatonism as a category can actually lead to
an ambiguity of thought.
5  We will discuss this more in chapter six of this book, in relation to Pico’s notion of Teshuvah.
See also the important treatment of this topic in Crofton Black Pico’s Heptaplus and Biblical
Hermeneutics (Leiden and Boston: Brill, 2016), 177–213.
6  For purposes of clarity in distinguishing him from his father Isaac Abravanel, and due to his
wide reception in the vernacular, Judah Abravanel will be referred to throughout this study
as Leone Ebreo.
Introduction 3

in their respective searches for answers. All four of these thinkers were amongst
the elites of the Renaissance and thus variously reflect some of its paths of
thought. They all also influenced such paths, with the thought of Pico and
Leone Ebreo even at the cutting edge of the non-Jewish world. Nevertheless,
all four were deeply imbedded in the world of medieval Jewish thought, and it
is my contention that their novelties represent a continuum with that world.
Thus, in order to understand such Renaissance beginnings of new trends in
thought, it is imperative to understand their uses of medieval Hebrew sources,
such as the twelfth century Provencal Sefer ha-Bahir, the thirteenth century
Spanish commentator Nahmanides, and the late thirteenth and early four­
teenth century Italian kabbalist Menahem Recanati. It is also necessary to
understand their own hermeneutics, which are often taken over from or influ­
enced by their medieval predecessors, in understanding older sources such
as Rabbinic midrash and Platonic philosophy. We will see such deep engage­
ments with medieval sources and methods throughout this book, and we will
attempt to flesh out any novelties precisely through such engagements and
through analyses of what it is that our Renaissance thinkers are doing with
such sources and methods.
Alemanno, Pico, Abravanel and Ebreo were all involved in the same intel­
lectual and social circles, and they seem to have mutually influenced each
other. Alemanno and Pico are in fact known to have been in extensive contact,
and they seem to even explicitly reference each other in their works.7 Leone
Ebreo points to his father Isaac Abravanel as one of his greatest teachers,
and Isaac reciprocates, pointing to Leone as the greatest philosopher of his

7  See, for example, Oxford Bodleian 2234, 17a, in which Alemanno seems to be quoting Pico.
There he references a certain figure whom he designates as ‫( הקיד"ל‬Ha-Kidal), on man as
a master of free-will. Moshe Idel has argued convincingly in private conversation with me,
in public lectures, and now in his Kabbalah in Italy 1280–1510: A Survey (New Haven: Yale
University Press, 2011), 190–191, that this is most probably an acronym for ‫האדון קונטה יובני‬
‫( דלמירנדולה‬Ha-Adon Conte Iovanni della Mirandola). For Pico’s possible referencing of
Alemanno, see his Commentary on a Canzone of Benivieni, translated by Sears Jayne (New
York: Peter Lang, 1984), 131. The literature concerning the relationship between Alemanno
and Pico is vast. For some of the clearest treatments, see Fabrizio Lelli, “Un collaborator
ebreo di Giovanni Pico della Mirandola: Yohanan Alemanno,” Vivens Homo (decembre 1994):
401–429; idem, “Yohanan Alemanno, Giovanni Pico della Mirandola, e la cultura ebraica
italiana del XV secolo,” in Giovanni Pico della Mirandola: Convegno internazionale di studi nel
cinquecentesimo anniversario della morte (1494–1994). Mirandola, 4–8 ottobre 1994, a cura di
Gian Carlo Garfagnini, Firenze 1997: 303–325.
4 introduction

­generation.8 In addition, Abravanel seems to have been influenced by Alemanno,

and both Alemanno and Pico seem to have had great influence upon their
younger contemporary Leone.9 The web of influence and exchange is indeed
intricate, though to-date, no scholarly analysis has juxtaposed the thought of
these four thinkers. By focusing on this web, it is hoped that this book will heed
the important call of the eminent historian of Jewish thought Hava Tirosh-
Samuelson (neé Tirosh-Rothschild) concerning Italian Renaissance Jewish
­history: “We need not only monographs on individuals and analysis of selected
texts, but also analysis of social segments within the Jewish community.”10
Here that segment is a group of intellectual elites who were preoccupied with
questions of the beginning.
By focusing on Alemanno, who was a northern Italian thinker of Ashkenazi
stock, on Pico, who was a Christian thinker utilizing Jewish texts, on Abravanel,
who was a traditional Sephardic Jew who was transplanted rather late in life
to Italian soil, and on Leone Ebreo, who was also Sephardic but who was
known by a wider non-Jewish audience through the Italian publication of his
Dialoghi d’amore, this study seeks to offer a full picture by including varie­
gated thinkers. By concentrating on common themes within the respective
oeuvres of all four of the disparate thinkers discussed, regarding the begin­
ning of time and the crea­tion of the world, this study will seek to present
a common late fifteenth and early sixteenth century intellectual curiosity,
hingi­ng on Hebrew thought and relating to perceptions of the past and of the
beginning of the cosmos in relation to eternity.

8  See Jehuda Abravanel, or Leone Ebreo, “A Complaint Against the Time” [Hebrew], in
Anthologie der Hebräischen Dichtung in Italien, ed. Jefim Schirmann (Berlin: Schocken
Verlag, 1934), 221, and Isaac Abravanel, Questions of the wise and honorable Saul Ha-Kohen,
may his memory be for the world to come, which he asked from the universal sage, the great
minister of the people of Israel, the divine philosopher, sir Isaac Abravanel, may his memory
be for the world to come (Hebrew: Venice, 1574), 20b, respectively.
9  For more on the influence of Alemanno on Abravanel, see Moshe Idel, “The Magical and
Neoplatonic Interpretations of the Kabbalah in the Renaissance,” in Essential Papers on
Jewish Culture in Renaissance and Baroque Italy, ed. David B. Ruderman (New York and
London: New York University Press, 1992), 134; Idem, Kabbalah in Italy, 283. For more on
Alemanno’s and Pico’s influences on Leone Ebreo, see Angela Guidi, Amour et Sagesse.
Les Dialogues d’amour de Juda Abravanel dans la tradition salomonienne (Boston and
Leiden: Brill, 2011), 193–200, 287–295; Arthur Lesley, “The Place of the Dialoghi d’amore in
Contemporaneous Jewish Thought,” in Essential Papers on Jewish Culture in Renaissance
and Baroque Italy, 180–184.
10  Hava Tirosh-Rothschild, “Jewish Culture in Renaissance Italy: A Methodological Survey,”
Italia vol. ix no. 1–2 (1990): 96.
Introduction 5

It is important to note that by including Pico, I am indeed reaching outside

of the confines of the “Jewish community” of which Tirosh-Samuleson writes;
but as David Ruderman has noted, “The importance of Pico to Renaissance
Jewish culture seems to lie primarily in the novel challenge he posed to the
continuity of Jewish national existence . . . challenging the viability and justifi­
cation of Jewish particularity in the modern western world.”11 It is thus impor­
tant to include him here for a full understanding of Renaissance Jewish culture,
and for the purposes of fleshing out the challenges that elite Jews were facing
in relation to their processes of thought. But my reason for including Pico in
this study works in the other direction as well: Specifically, by focusing on his
uses of Jewish texts and themes, I seek to provide a broader and more complex
picture of the role that Jewish thought had within wider Italian Renaissance
sensibilities.
Ultimately, it is my contention that the Renaissance itself was a new
“beginning” in certain modes of thought that will be drawn out throughout
this study; but it was a subtle new beginning, that lay in clear continuity with
medieval textual and hermeneutical traditions. The seeming paradox of a new
beginning that represents a continuity relates to the prisca sapientia tradi­
tion as espoused by the likes of the fifteenth century Florentine philosopher
Marsilio Ficino, which sought to find true insight into abstract matters, such as
“the beginning,” in the ancient past. In our case especially, the fact that these
ancient sources were closer to “the beginning” gives them an even stronger
sense of authority. In the case of medieval Kabbalah and commentary, pro­
ponents saw themselves, quite literally, as the direct receivers of such ancient
traditions. All four of our thinkers stand in such a line of reception.
The goal of the prisca sapientia tradition was perhaps to uncover authori­
tative knowledge that was closer to the source, but a corollary result was a
plurality of voices deemed valid. Renaissance thinkers not only looked to the
ancient Greek tradition in their “renaissance,” i.e., their rebirth of wisdom, but
they also turned to sources such as ancient Egyptian and Persian writings, to
classical Indian traditions, and naturally, to ancient biblical texts. Out of the
plurality of voices, this study will focus on the narrative of the Hebrew Bible
concerning the beginning, as well as subsequent Hebrew sources concerning
the topic that were also thought to be ancient. In so doing, we will attempt to
understand how such a plurality of voices as drawn out by the prisca sapienti­a
tradition led to the beginning of new types of exegesis that hinged on the
­interplay between universalism and particularism.

11  David Ruderman, “Italian Renaissance and Jewish Thought,” in Renaissance Humanism:
Foundations, Forms, and Legacy, vol. 1, ed. Albert Rabil, Jr. (Philadelphia: University of
Pennsylvania Press, 1988), 414–415.
6 introduction

The Hebrew Bible is an interesting place to begin discourse on the

beginning because the beginning of the Bible begins, quite literally, “in
the beginning.” But what precisely was this beginning that is recounted
there the beginning of ? It seems to be speaking about the beginning of cre­
ation, but what is creation, and what does it mean to speak of its beginning?
Was the beginning of creation that is recounted the same as its origin? And
when and how did this beginning begin? Can one properly speak of a “when”
if the beginning itself started all time within which a “when” makes sense, and
associatively, can one speak of that which was before the beginning? If so,
what was there, and where was the “there” where it was? When was it? In fact,
is this beginning at the beginning of the Bible a spatio-temporal designation at
all, or is it more ontological and conditional in character? These are questions
with no clear answers, and by beginning with a reference to the beginning,
the Bible indeed seems to confound; readers are faced with a challenge from
the very beginning. Where does one even begin to explicate the beginning of
everything? This is a question that has plagued biblical exegetes, perhaps since
the beginning of exegesis itself, and for Platonically influenced exegetes in late
fifteenth and early sixteenth century Italy, perhaps the directive advanced by
Plato’s Timaeus is the most applicable: “With regard to everything it is most
important to begin at the natural beginning.”12
Such seemingly conspicuous advice is indeed followed by the four think­
ers who will be analyzed in this book. But before we begin with the begin­
ning and its explication, it would be contextually expedient to provide some
background on the authors to be discussed. I will present them here in the
order that they will be discussed throughout: Alemanno, Pico, Abravanel, and
Ebreo. The reason why I have ordered them as such is because Alemanno was
one of Pico’s teachers in Hebrew matters and was one of the more established
Italian Jewish authorities, Abravanel was somewhat of a later addition to the
Italian scene who seems to have been influenced by Alemanno and may have
been influenced by the Platonic circles of Pico, and Ebreo, who was the young­
est of the four, seems to have been influenced by all of his elder contempo­
raries and certainly was published subsequent to all three. Thus, we begin with
Alemanno.
Yohanan Alemanno was born in either Città di Castello or in Mantova
in northern Italy in 1435 or 1436.13 His father Isaac seems to have been an

12  Plato, Timaeus 29b, quoted in John Sallis, Chronology: On Beginning in Plato’s Timaeus
(Bloomington and Indianapolis: Indiana University Press, 1999), 4.
13  For more on the documentation of his date and place of birth, see Michele Luzatti, “Elites
familiari e dotti ebrei nel rinascimento: ipotesi per la biografia di Yohanan Alemanno,”
Quaderni Storici 91, XXXL n. 1 (aprile 1996): 105–111.
Introduction 7

Ashkenazi Jewish book dealer who earned his living by selling manuscripts.14
This would account, in part, for Yohanan’s extensive knowledge of an unprec­
edentedly vast array of sources. Yohanan’s father Isaac lived in Aragon, where
he presumably married a Spanish woman. Prior to Yohanan’s birth, the couple
relocated to the Vatican in the footsteps of Isaac’s father and Yohanan’s grand­
father Elijah, who had been sent as an emissary to the Holy See. The entire
family remained in Italy, and around 1420, Elijah spent some time in Florence,
where he may have established a relationship with the famed Jewish banker
Yehiel of Pisa.15 This is significant because Yohanan relates that he lost his
father at a relatively young age, at which point he entered into the patron­
age of the da Pisa family, eventually tutoring Yehiel’s children but also taking
advantage of the family’s extensive reach.16 Indeed, because of their posi­
tion of prominence and because of their extreme interest in learning, the da
Pisas maintained contacts with the most important Jewish intellectuals in the
Mediterranean world, including Isaac Abravanel and his son Leone Ebreo.
I will have more to say about these figures later, but it is important to keep in
mind that Alemanno may very well have been acquainted with them through
the da Pisa family network.
Another important intellectual with whom Alemanno came into contact
through the da Pisa family was Judah Messer Leon, who was a famed doctor,
a consummate rhetorician, and a highly learned Aristotelian philosopher. In
1469, Messer Leon had been conferred a special doctoral degree in philoso­
phy and medicine by Emperor Frederick III, which allowed him both to treat
non-Jewish patients and to award doctoral degrees to his own Jewish students.17
Alemanno, who studied with Messer Leon in Mantova, was one of the first of
these; he was given the title of Doctor liberalium artium et medicinae by his
teacher Judah Messer Leon in 1470.
Alemanno entered into an intellectual relationship with the famed Italian
humanist Giovanni Pico della Mirandola upon his arrival in Florence in

14  Idel, Kabbalah in Italy, 177; Lelli, “Cultural Relationships between Jews and Non-Jews in
Fifteenth Century Italy: The Case of Yohanan Alemanno,” Printed Matter: Centro Primo
Levi Online Monthly (June 25, 2014): http://primolevicenter.org/printed-matter/yohanan-
alemanno. Most of the bibliographical information on Alemanno will be based on these
two sources.
15  Lelli, “Cultural Relationships.”
16  For an extensive treatment of the da Pisa family, see Umberto Cassuto’s nine part series:
“Sulla Famiglia da Pisa,” in Rivista Israelitica 5 (1908, n. 4): 227–238, 6 (1909, n. 1): 21–30,
6 (1909, n. 3): 102–113, 6 (1909, n. 4–5): 160–170, 6 (1909, n. 6): 223–232, 7 (1910, n. 1): 9–16,
7 (1910, n. 2–3): 72–86, 7 (1910, n. 4): 146–150, and 10 (1913, n. 2): 48–59.
17  Judah Messer Leon, Nofet Zufim: On Hebrew Rhetoric (Hebrew: Mantua, ca. 1475;
repr. Jerusalem, 1981), 9–10.
8 introduction

1488, but there is some evidence that he may have encountered Pico earlier.18
Whatever the case may be for an earlier encounter, Alemanno relates that it is
at this later date that Pico encouraged him to write his extensive commentary
on the Song of Songs, entitled Heshek Shlomo.19 By this time he was already
well at work on his voluminous treatise entitled Hay ha-‘Olamim, which deals
with different stages in the life of an individual from birth to death, and his
Einei ha-Edah, which is a philosophical-kabbalistic commentary on the first
few chapters of the book of Genesis. Already at this time, then, Alemanno was
concerning himself with questions regarding the beginning, both in regard to
life and in regard to the world. The last date recorded for Alemanno is 1505,
which is the year explicitly noted in his unfinished Einei ha-Edah. Rather poeti­
cally, it is here, in one of the last recorded works of Alemanno that he most
fully treats the notion of the beginning.
Giovanni Pico della Mirandola was one of Alemanno’s most prominent
Christian interlocutors, is one of the best known philosophers of the Italian
Renaissance, and is considered by many to be the father of a syncretic trend
known as Christian Kabbalah. Pico was born in 1463 to a noble family whose
fiefdom included the northern Italian township of Concordia. By way of a
clever double entendre designating both his noble status in regard to the locale
and his penchant for syncretic concord that included both philosophy and
Kabbalah, Pico came to be known as the “Prince of Concordia.” Giovanni Pico’s
father died when he was very young, both leaving him and his brothers a great
inheritance and putting them in the sole care of their mother, Giulia Boiardo.20
Giovanni’s mother wanted him to pursue an ecclesiastical career, and in 1477,
she sent the then fourteen year old Pico to Bologna to study canon law.
Pico did not find his mother’s plans for him amenable, and subsequent
to her death in 1478, he moved to the arts faculty in Ferrara, where he began
to study philosophy. This greatly interested him, and fifteen months later
he moved to Padova in order to study Aristotelianism at Italy’s most famed

18  Giovanni Pico della Mirandola, De hominis dignitate, heptaplus, de ente et uno, e scritti vari,
a cura di Eugenio Garin (Firenze: Vallecchi Editore, 1942), 535.
19  Arthur Lesley, The Song of Solomon’s Ascents by Yohanan Alemanno: Love and Human
Perfection According to a Jewish Colleague of Giovanni Pico della Mirandola (dissertation,
University of California at Berkeley, 1976), 5.
20  Francesco Borghesi, “Chronology,” in Oration on the Dignity of Man: A New Translation and
Commentary, edited by Francesco Borghesi, Michael Papio and Massimo Riva (Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press, 2012), 37. Most of the biographical information on Pico will
be based on this source, and on Brian Copenhaver, “Giovanni Pico della Mirandola,”
The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Summer 2012 Edition), Edward N. Zalta (ed.),
URL = <http://plato.stanford.edu/archives/sum2012/entries/pico-della-mirandola/>.
Introduction 9

university. It was there that he met the Jewish Averroist Elijah Delmedigo of
Crete, who eventually furnished Pico with a bibliography that included kab­
balistic texts such as Me’irat Einayim, Sha’arei Orah, and Ma’arekhet ha-Elohut.21
It was during this period that Pico also became interested in the Florentine lit­
erary movement through his friend Angelo Poliziano, whom he met in Mantova
in 1472. In 1483 he found himself in Florence, and in 1484, he read through a
copy of Marsilio Ficino’s recently written Theologia Platonica. Regardless of
his deep interest in Plato as sparked, in part, by this important work, Pico
remained a faithful follower of Aristotle at this point, and in 1485 he travelled
to Paris, which was then a bastion of Aristotelian scholasticism.
Upon his return to Florence, Pico set himself on a project of philosophical
concord. This was to include the reconciliation of Aristotle and Plato, but it was
also to constitute an entirely new system as based upon the prisca sapientia
tradition.22 According to this idea, as set forth by the likes of Ficino, ancient
wisdom is considered pristine, and it embraces several traditions, including
ancient Greek wisdom, ancient Indian wisdom, ancient Egyptian wisdom in the
form of Hermetica, and also ancient Jewish wisdom in the form of Kabbalah.
This last form of ancient wisdom came to a unique position of prominence for
Pico, and it is for this purpose that he set himself to Hebrew learning in 1486.
It is also in this light that he composed his nine-hundred Conclusiones that
he planned to defend in a magnificent self-sponsored conference in Rome,
well over one-hundred and twenty of which were on specifically kabbalistic
themes. In this same regard, Pico’s famed Oration, which was originally penned
as an introduction to the planned conference, is very kabbalistically tinged.23
A papal commission deemed thirteen of Pico’s conclusiones heretical and
prevented the planned conference from taking place. Pico wrote an Apologia

21  Black, Pico’s Heptaplus, 14.

22  The literature on this tradition abounds. For representative examples, see Charles Schmitt,
“Perennial Philosophy: From Agostino Steuco to Leibniz,” Journal of the History of Ideas 27
(1966) 505–532; Christopher Celenza, “The Search for Ancient Wisdom in Early Modern
Europe: Reuchlin and the Late Ancient Esoteric Paradigm,” Journal of Religious History,
vol. 25 no. 2 (June 2001): 115–133; Fabrizio Lelli, “Prisca Philosophia and Docto Religio: The
Boundaries of Rational Knowledge in Jewish and Christian and Humanist Thought,”
Jewish Quarterly Review 91, 1–2 (2000): 53–99; Moshe Idel, “Prisca Theologia in Marsilio
Ficino and in Some Jewish Treatments,” in Marsilio Ficino: His Theology, His Philosophy,
His Legacy, edited by Michael J.B. Allen and Valery Rees with Martin Davies (Leiden and
Boston: Brill, 2002), 137–158.
23  For an excellent reading of the Oration that offers an important corrective to the idea that
it is all about “the dignity of man,” see Brian Copenhaver, “The Secret of Pico’s Oration:
Cabala and Renaissance Philosophy,” Midwest Studies in Philosophy, XXVI (2002): 56–81.
10 introduction

attempting to clarify the contested theses, but this was only taken as an act of
insubordination, and Pope Innocent VIII banned all of the conclusiones and
sent Pico fleeing to Paris for his life. Lorenzo de Medici intervened on Pico’s
behalf, and in 1488, Pico was allowed to return to Florence. It is in that year
that Pico entered into a prolonged intellectual relationship with Yohanan
Alemanno, and it is in 1489 that he wrote his Heptaplus, which is his sevenfold
account of the six days of Genesis. In that work Pico most fully combines phi­
losophy and Kabbalah, albeit in a veiled manner, in an explicit treatment of
the beginning of time and the creation of the world. This was five years before
Pico’s death in Florence on November 17, 1494 at the young age of 31.
Isaac ben Judah Abravanel was born in 1437 in Lisbon to a prominent
Spanish-Jewish family that traced its lineage back to King David.24 The son
of one of the principle financiers of Prince Fernando of Portugal, Isaac main­
tained close ties to the royal court throughout his early life, and around 1472
he entered into a position of prominence in the inner circle of King Alfonso V.
It should be noted that already at this point, Abravanel was in contact with the
aforementioned da Pisa family, and that he sent a letter to Alemanno’s patron,
Yehiel da Pisa, via a diplomatic mission for King Alfonso in 1472.25 The sudden
death of Alfonso in 1481 saw the ascendancy of his son, João II, who deemed
Abravanel a conspirator in an anti-royal plan. In 1483, Abravanel fled for his
life to Spain, where he entered into the service of King Ferdinand and Queen
Isabella. These two royal figures issued their infamous edict of expulsion
against the Jews in 1492, and Abravanel stepped in as the major spokesman
of the Jewish people, pleading for the edict’s revocation. This was to no avail,
and by the beginning of May 1492, the fate of Spanish Jewry was sealed. In July,
Abravanel and his family left everything behind and boarded a ship for Italy.
In the fall of 1492, the Abravanel family landed in the city of Naples, where
Isaac was immediately ushered into the service of King Ferrante I. Abravanel’s
service at court lasted through the reign of Ferrante’s son and successor,
Alfonso II, who finally abdicated the throne in 1495 due to the imminent threat
of French invasion. Loyal to Alfonso and knowledgeable of the French position
toward the Jews, Abravanel followed his dethroned leader into exile in Sicily.

24  For the best biography of Abravanel, see the still relevant work of Benzion Netanyahu,
Don Isaac Abravanel: Statesman and Philosopher (Ithaca and London: Cornell University
Press, 1998), 3–91; Eric Lawee, Isaac Abarbanel’s Stance Toward Tradition: Defense, Dissent,
and Dialogue (Albany: State University of New York Press, 2001), 9–25. Most of the
biographical information here is drawn from these two sources.
25  Cedric Cohen Skalli, Isaac Abravanel: Letters (Berlin and New York: Walter de Gruyter,
2007), 4.
Introduction 11

In the meantime, Alfonso decided to abandon politics and to enter into monas­
tic life. Abravanel could not remain upon Sicilian soil at this point, which was
then under Spanish control. He also elected not to return to Naples, which
was still under the grip of some warring French troops. Rather, he headed east,
stopping in Venetian controlled Corfu on his way to Turkey.
For unknown reasons, Abravanel never made it to the Ottoman Empire.
Instead, he ended up in Apulia in southern Italy, where he lived from the
beginning of 1496 until 1503. During this period Abravanel was highly prolific,
turning his attention to philosophical and mystical concepts such as creation
ex nihilo and the eschatological end of times.26 One historian has noted that
during this period, Abravanel was finally relieved from the pressures of the
political duties that had previously bound him at the royal courts of Lisbon,
Spain, and Naples.27 He could now sit and reflect on what he had learned dur­
ing his 58 years of life, and write.
Abravanel’s final move was to Venice in 1503. Perhaps this was due to
­economic or political interests, or perhaps it was due to the fact that his
son Joseph was in Venice, practicing medicine. Whatever the case may be,
Abravanel again became involved in politics, mediating an economic conflict
between Venice and his place of birth, Portugal. In addition, he continued his
literary activity and completed his commentary on the entire Bible. It is there,
and especially in his commentary on the book of Genesis, that he most fully
treats the idea of creation, bringing to bear both Kabbalah and philosophy.
Coincidentally like both Alemanno and Pico, it is ironically toward the end
of his life that questions of the beginning receive the greatest treatment. In
November of 1508, Abravanel died at the age of 71 and was buried in Padova
due to a legal prohibition against the burial of Jews in Venice.
Abravanel’s eldest son Judah was born in Lisbon, sometime around 1465.28
Beyond the activities connected to the curriculum of his father, not much is
known about Judah’s life. We do know that he eventually came to be known as
Leone Ebreo (literally: Leon the Jew) by his Italian readers, seemingly based on
the association in Genesis 49:9 between Judah and the lion. There it is written,
“Judah is a lion’s whelp.” For the purpose of clarity in distinguishing between

26  For a treatment of such ideas in Abravanel’s thought as arising out of his Apulian period,
see Brian Ogren, “La questione dei cicli cosmici nella produzione pugliese di Yišhaq
Abrabanel,” Itinerari di Ricerca Storica, xx–xxi (2007): 141–161.
27  Netanyahu, Don Isaac Abravanel: Statesman and Philosopher, 75.
28  For the most comprehensive biography, see Menachem Dorman, “Introduction”
[Hebrew], in Yehuda Abravanel, Sihot al ha-Ahavah, translated and edited by Menachem
Dorman (Jerusalem: Mossad Bialik, 1983), 13–95.
12 introduction

father and son, and due to the fact that he was known by his readership as
such, we will be referring to him throughout this study not as Judah Abravanel,
but as Leone Ebreo. Leone received a broad education that included both the
most thorough Jewish instruction and the most pristine non-Jewish schooling.
Leone seems to have moved with his father and his entire family from
Portugal to Spain after the death of King Alfonso V and the mistaken impli­
cation of his father in a royal plot. He was a medical doctor by training, and
at some point after 1484, he entered into the service of the Spanish court.
Ferdinand and Isabel wanted to retain his services beyond their edict of expul­
sion in 1492, and accordingly made plans to force his conversion and to seek
the conversion of his entire family. In order to avoid the forced baptism of his
one year old son Isaac, Leone immediately sent him with a nanny to Portugal,
which would not see an edict of expulsion for another five years. Leone’s plan
backfired, however, and João II, who was no friend to the Abravanel family, had
the boy seized and baptized.
After this heart wrenching debacle, which would leave its mark on Leone’s
views of Christianity, Leone made his way to Naples, where he reunited with
his father and where he was welcomed, along with his father, into the court
of King Ferrante and his son Alfonso II. With the arrival of the troops of
Charles VIII in 1495, however, Leone was forced to flee. Instead of going with
his father and Alfonso to Sicily, he made his way to Genova, where he remained
for about six years. He then made his way to Barletta in the south of Italy,
where he reunited with his father, and where he seems to have worked on the
bulk of his magnum opus, the Dialoghi d’amore. Eventually Leone made his
way to Venice, but we do not know whether it was only to visit his brother
Joseph and his aging father, or whether it was a more permanent arrange­
ment. It is also unclear whether Leone visited Tuscany, though the Portuguese
Converso Amatus Lusitanus relates that he saw a work by Leone entitled
de Coeli Harmonia, dedicated to Gianfrancesco Pico della Mirandola.29 This
work is no longer extant, but the testimony is important in that if it is true,
it places Leone in direct contact with a member of the Pico clan.
Leone’s only major extant work is his Dialoghi d’amore, though he did
leave behind some important Hebrew poetry, including introductory appro­
bations to some of his father’s works. The Dialoghi did not have much of an
impact upon Jewish thought until modern times, but they did have influence
outside of the Jewish world, and were referred to by many authors, such as

29  Seymour Feldman, Philosophy in a Time of Crisis: Don Isaac Abravanel: Defender of the
Faith (London and New York: RoutledgeCurzon, 2003), 167.
Introduction 13

Tullia d’Aragona, Michel de Montaigne, and Miguel Cervantes.30 Interestingly,

however, his cosmogony and his notion of the beginning, which mainly come
in the third dialogue, are heavily influenced by Jewish thought. There Leone
tackles the same types of issues concerning the creation of the world and the
beginning of time that occupy all three of his older contemporaries, and like
all three who deal with this in their later works and toward the end of their
lives, Leone coincidentally treats the subject toward the end of his work in the
third of his three extant dialogues. The date and place of Leone’s death remain
a mystery, though some scholars believe that he may have lived his last years
in Rome, where his Dialoghi were posthumously published, in Italian, in 1535.
By way of cultural, social, and ideational proximity, these four thinkers
represent a cluster that provides the perfect grounds for an inclusive analysis.
In that vein, this study will focus on their common treatments of the beginning
and will draw out both the similarities and the differences within their respec­
tive propositions. In so doing, it will offer a comprehensive picture of late
­fifteenth century and early sixteenth century Italian kabbalistic-philosophical
views of the creation of the world and the beginning of time. What makes this
period unique is not only an increase in Jewish-Christian intellectual exchange
and dialogue as exemplified by the relationship between Alemanno and Pico,
but also a heightened syncretism, which openly brings Greek thought as relat­
ing to the book of nature into relationship with the Bible as the ultimate repre­
sentation of the book of God. As Moshe Idel has noted, “The Renaissance may
be described as the period when the relationship between the book of God and
the book of nature started to shift in a new direction.”31 Perhaps this new rela­
tionship, in which the book of nature starts to become dominant but in no way
replaces the book of God, can no better be examined than through theories of
creation and the beginning of time.
This brings us back to the original exhortation of Plato’s Timaeus: “With
regard to everything it is most important to begin at the natural beginning.”32
As one would perhaps expect for the four thinkers being discussed here, the
‘natural beginning’ is read into the beginning that begins the Bible. By con­
flating the book of nature with the book of God through the notion of the

30  For more on such influence, see T. Anthony Perry, Erotic Spirituality: The Integrative
Tradition from Leone Ebreo to John Donne (Alabama: The University of Alabama Press,
1980).
31  Moshe Idel, Absorbing Perfections: Kabbalah and Interpretation (New Haven: Yale
University Press, 2002), 482.
32  Plato, Timaeus 29b.
14 introduction

beginning, however, a whole new series of questions arises. As Plato scholar

John Sallis asks:

What is the natural beginning? Where, if anywhere, is the natural begin­

ning—in what kind of where? When was it? Across what interval of time
must it be recalled in order that one begin with it? Is it a beginning in
time or a beginning of time? Or even a beginning that—in some other,
unsaid order—would precede the beginning of time? Is this beginning—
this origin—with which one is to begin sufficiently manifest at the begin­
ning that one can begin straigtaway with it? Or is it perhaps the case that
what is manifest in the beginning is precisely not the natural beginning,
so that, instead of beginning with the natural beginning, one could only
arrive at it by way of a discourse capable of bringing it to light?33

Whether applied to Plato or to the Bible, Sallis’ point is clear: the idea of the
natural beginning naturally creates a whole series of confounding questions.
Directly expanding upon Sallis’ line of questioning regarding the beginning,
Elliot Wolfson has perspicaciously asked: “How does the beginning begin with­
out having already begun? If, however, the beginning cannot begin without
having already begun, in what sense is it a beginning?”34 Wolfson has termed
this conundrum “the hermeneutical dilemma of the beginning,”35 which is an
apt phrase due to the problematic hermeneutical circle of time in regard to the
beginning. Indeed, all speculation regarding the beginning is temporally situ­
ated after the beginning and is conditioned by our existence in, and as a part
of, that which has already begun. We cannot truly understand that which was
at the beginning since, in the words of Plato’s Timaeus, “ ‘was’ and ‘will be’ are
created aspects of time . . . [They] are properties of things that are created and
that change over time.”36 If created, then that which “was” as the first marker
of time opening into that which “will be” must have begun, but without itself,
it cannot possibly have had a known beginning. This is due to the fact that the
beginning of time, as far as we are able to know it and to conceive of it from the
logic of time itself, “was” a point in and of time itself.

33  John Sallis, Chronology, 4.

34  Elliot Wolfson, Alef, Mem, Tau: Kabbalistic Musings on Time, Truth, and Death (Berkeley:
University of California Press), 118.
35  Ibid.
36  Plato, Timaeus and Critias: A New Translation by Robin Waterfield (Oxford: Oxford
University Press, 2008), 26.
Introduction 15

As Edward Said has cast the conundrum in his seminal book on beginnings,
“To identify a point as a beginning is to classify it after the fact . . . a beginning
is often that which is left behind.”37 Said’s statement seems to be in the wake of
Martin Heidegger, who wrote that “being a beginning involves being left behind
in the course of the process. The beginning is there just to be abandoned and
passed over. The beginning is always surpassed and left behind in the haste
of going further.”38 Similar to Wolfson, whose hermeneutical dilemma of the
beginning is also influenced by Heideggerian hermeneutics, Said goes on to
discuss the conundrum that is involved in the posthumous identification and
retrieval of that which is deemed as a beginning, since it is an entirely circular
production:

Constructing the tautology that says one begins at the beginning depends
on the ability of both mind and language to reverse themselves, and thus
to move from present to past and back again, from a complex situation
to an anterior simplicity and back again, or from one point to another as
if in a circle. It is the ability to do these things that makes thought both
intelligible and verging on obscurity at the same time. We clearly know
what it means to begin; then why question our certainty by reminding
ourselves that in the realm of thought, beginning is not really a beginner’s
game.39

The four late fifteenth and early sixteenth century thinkers being treated here
were certainly no beginners in relation to thought concerning the beginning.
As we will see, for them, like for Said, an understanding of the beginning hinges
on the abilities of both mind and language. For all four, the beginning also
relates to the correlation between simplicity and complexity, to the circular­
ity of time and of thought, and to the interaction between intelligibility and
obscurity.
Yet distinct from Said as influenced by Heidegger, and from John Sallis as
influenced by Plato, for that matter, Alemanno, Pico, Abravanel and Ebreo
are influenced by the medieval Hebrew hermeneutical tradition, and take the
beginning of the Hebrew Bible as their point of beginning. It should be noted
in this context that their beginning is absolute, is the metaphysical beginning,
as opposed to both Sallis’ natural beginning and to the more relative abstrac­
tion of any beginning, including textual and literary beginnings, as posited

37  Edward Said, Beginnings: Intention and Method (New York: Basic Books, Inc., 1975), 29.
38  Heidegger, Basic Concepts, 93, quoted in Wolfson, Alef, Mem, Tau, 120.
39  Said, Beginnings, 29–30.
16 introduction

within Said’s discourse. For this reason, this present book is broken down into
two sections, as based on the first two verses of the book of Genesis. The first
section traces the complex exegetical dealings of the four authors with the
very first word of the Bible: Bereshit, i.e., “In the beginning.” Here the notion
of Wisdom as the beginning plays a major role, as does the linguistic make-
up of the word itself. The second section analyzes the authors’ treatments
of the notion that the beginning of the earth was tohu and bohu, oftentimes
translated as “formless and void,” but understood in various ways by our four
authors. Here astonishment and substantiality play an important part in our
authors’ understandings of the processes of the beginning.
In regard to the first section on Bereshit, it is important to provide some
exegetical background. We begin with the early medieval Targum Yerushalmi,
which translates the first word of the Bible into the Aramaic B’Hukhma,
i.e., “With Wisdom.”40 This seems to be based on an isomorphism between
reshit, i.e., “beginning,” and hokhmah, i.e., “wisdom,” as stemming from Psalm
111:10, which literally begins with the two words: Reshit hokhmah; taken in iso­
lation, this can be read as “The beginning is wisdom.” Another suggestion is
that the Targum Yerushalmi is connected to the Talmudic tractate Sanhedrin as
commenting on Proverbs 9:1–3: Wisdom has built her house; she has hewn her
seven pillars. She has cooked her meat, she has poured her wine, she has also set
her table. The Talmud states:

Wisdom has built her house: This is the attribute of the Holy One, blessed
be He, who created the world by Wisdom. She has hewn her seven pil-
lars: These are the seven days of creation. She has cooked her meat, she
has poured her wine, she has also set her table: These are the seas and the
rivers and all the other requirements of the world.41

Here, not only is Wisdom explicitly stated to be the attribute by which God
created the world in the very beginning, she is also hypostatized as a form of
logos. This gives her a truly unique status as both an attribute of God and a very
active intermediary for Him, who herself is an involved participant in creation.
Taken in light of the first creation narrative of the Torah, it is not difficult to
see how Wisdom thus designated, as existing before “the seas and the rivers

40  Targum Yerushalmi l’Torah, with commentary and corrections by Moshe Ginzburger
(Berlin: S. Kaluari and Partners, 1898), 3.
41  BT Sanhedrin 38a: ‫ שברא את כל‬,‫חכמות בנתה ביתה ־ זו מידתו של הקדוש ברוך הוא‬
‫ טבחה טבחה מסכה‬,‫ חצבה עמודיה שבעה ־ אלו שבעת ימי בראשית‬.‫העולם כולו בחכמה‬
.‫יינה אף ערכה שלחנה ־ אלו ימים ונהרות וכל צורכי עולם‬
Introduction 17

and all the other requirements of the world,” and even before “the seven days
of creation,” could naturally become paired with reshit, i.e., “the beginning.”
The thirteenth century Spanish kabbalist and commentator Moshe ben
Nahman (Nahmanides) hypostatized Hokhmah in the manner of the Talmud,
but also explicitly drew upon the Targum Yerushalmi in equating Reshit with
Hokhmah. At the outset of his Torah commentary, he explicitly states, in hypo­
static form, that the word Bereshit “is a hint at the sefirah that is called Hokhmah,
within which is the foundation of everything, according to that which is said:
The Lord by Wisdom (b’Hokhmah) founded the earth (Proverbs 3:19).”42 Here he
takes the hypostatization of the Talmud to another level, equating Reshit with
the second k­ abbalistic divine emanation. Later he reiterates: “Bereshit hints
at Hokhmah, which is the beginning of all heads (or beginnings) . . . thus the
Targum Yerushalmi translates it as B’Hukhmta; and the word is crowned with
the crown of Bet.”43 Here Nahmanides explicitly cites the Targum Yerushalmi
as a prooftext, and begins to discuss the beginning of all beginnings as divine
Wisdom in relation to beginnings as the heads of things. As we will see, this
type of Nahmanidean thinking had a profound influence on the thinkers to
be discussed here, as did Nahmanides’ notion of the Hebrew letter bet, which
begins the word Bereshit as a crown upon the head of Hokhmah.
As that which begins Bereshit, the letter bet is the true beginning, of both the
Torah and of creation. In this regard, the twelfth century Sefer ha-Bahir makes
a distinction between such a beginning in bet and that which was before: “Why
is alef at the head? For it was before everything, even Torah. And why is bet
close to it? Because it was the beginning.”44 Elliot Wolfson clarifies that alef
represents the origin here, while bet represents the beginning. He explains the
difference: “ ‘Origin’ is an ontic demarcation, a name ascribed to the abyssal
state that is the essence of God, the whither and whence of all that comes to
be in the cycle of becoming; ‘beginning,’ by contrast, is a chronological demar­
cation that marks the initiatory moment of the temporal enfolding of divine
action.”45 Despite the distinction as discerningly demarcated by Wolfson, the

42  Nahmanides on Genesis 1:1, 14: ‫ כענין שנאמר יי‬,‫ שבה יסוד כל‬,‫רמז לספירה הנקראת חכמה‬
.‫בחכמה יסד ארץ‬
43  Nahmanides on Genesis 1:1, 22: ‫בראשית תרמוז בחכמה שהיא ראשית הראשים כאשר הזכ־‬
.‫ והמלה מוכתרת בכתר בי"ת‬.‫ ולכך תרגמו בתרגום הירושלמי בחכמתא‬,‫רתי‬
44  The Book Bahir: An Edition Based on the Earliest Manuscripts [Hebrew], edited and
arranged by Daniel Abrams (Los Angeles: Cherub Press) 123: ‫ שהיא היתה‬,‫למה אלף בראש‬
.‫ מפני שהיא היתה תחלה‬,‫ ולמה בית קרובה לה‬.‫קודם לכל ואפי' לתורה‬
45  Wolfson, Alef, Mem, Tau, 119. For an in-depth discussion on the distinction between
origin and beginning in later Kabbalah, see Shaul Magid, “Origin and Overcoming the
Beginning: Zimzum as a Trope of Reading in Post-Lurianic Kabbala,” in Beginning/Again:
18 introduction

origin can only manifest itself through the beginning. Conversely, it is only by
way of the beginning that anything of the origin can be known. This dialectic
clearly plays itself out for all of the four thinkers being analyzed here in their
own treatments of the beginning as Wisdom.
The first chapter of this present study details Alemanno’s take on the
beginning of creation. Alemanno bases himself within classical Midrash
and ­kabbalistic thought that isomorphically equates Bereshit with Wisdom
as based on Psalm 111:10; but he also bases himself within Aristotelian and
Platonic thought in order to arrive at an apophatic understanding of the begin­
ning. For Alemanno, the revelatory language of the Torah parallels the pro­
cesses of creation. Both language and creation act as simulacra for thoughts in
the mind of God, which are themselves a form of proto-temporal beginning.
Similar to the Bahir, this involves a play with the letter bet as an imperfect, sec­
ondary beginning that at once covers and reveals that which came before; but
it also involves a wider implication of language in general as a necessary but
flawed revelatory construct. I argue that Alemanno intricately sets the stage as
a representative of the more cosmologically universalistic, albeit narratively
particularistic philosophical Kabbalah of his day.
The second chapter analyzes Pico’s Christological reading of the classical
isomorphism between Bereshit and Wisdom. It offers an alternative to a long
established view put forth by the distinguished Pico scholar Chaim Wirszubski,
as based on Midrashic notions of ‘Truth,’ i.e., emet, as the beginning, middle,
and end of creation. This is based in large part on linguistic hermeneutics that
utilize the letter bet of Bereshit as the second that is the beginning tying back
the All to the origin. I flesh out Pico’s kabbalistic and Midrashic sources for
ultimately equating Christ with Wisdom, and thus also with the Beginning. It
is my contention that Pico’s views on Christ as the Beginning of creation are
much more moored within kabbalistic and philosophical thought that is simi­
lar to that of Alemanno than has previously been recognized.
The third chapter analyzes Abravanel’s explication of Wisdom in relation
to the beginning. This comes by way of his commentary on angels, which
he associates with the Separate Intellects. Abravanel relies heavily upon his
predecessor Nahmanides for the kabbalistic explication of Wisdom, but he
also criticizes him. Abravanel also interestingly invokes the Zohar, bringing
kabbalistic notions of bodies and garments of Torah into dialogue with phil­
osophical ideas of God’s Wisdom and the beginning of creation. In this chap­
ter, I argue that Abravanel displays great knowledge of, and extreme respect
for kabbalist­ic lore regarding the beginning, but that he frames it within a

Toward a Hermeneutics of Jewish Texts, ed. Aryeh Cohen and Shaul Magid (New York and
London: Seven Bridges Press, 2002), 163–214.
Introduction 19

philosophical structure, similar to his contemporaries being discussed here in

this book.
The fourth and final chapter of the first section details Leone Ebreo’s under­
standing of the beginning of creation in Wisdom and Beauty. Leone seems
to rely in part on his father Isaac in bringing forth kabbalistic commentary
equating Wisdom with the Beginning; Nahmanides in particular seems to
resonate strongly. Notwithstanding, Leone uniquely transforms the kabbalistic
elements of the isomorphism in order to make them more universally appli­
cable. In so doing, he displays striking similarities to Alemanno in his ideas of
creation as a simulacrum of God, but he transfers the focus of this simulacrum
from language to art. I argue that his ideas of Beauty and the beginning in rela­
tion to art are based largely within the Platonic trends of his own day, but that
his overall project draws on both kabbalistic and rabbinic notions, while trans­
forming them completely into a more universalistic philosophical thought.
The second section of this present book moves from the process of the
beginning in Wisdom to discourse concerning the state of creation at that
very beginning. The Bible tells us that at the beginning of creation, the earth
was tohu and bohu; but what does this mean? In the first chapter of Genesis,
these terms apparently relate to the existential state of the earth after initial
creation but prior to final formation. Typically, tohu and bohu are translated
as “formlessness and void,” and as a linguistic unit, they seem to represent an
astounding vacuum of desolation. Thus, the eleventh century exegete Shlomo
Yitzhaki of Troyes (Rashi) explains tohu with the French term “etourdissant,”
meaning that which is dumbfounding or astounding, and he explains bohu as
an expression of emptiness and desolation.46 For Rashi, the first term tohu rep­
resents the emotional and contemplative state of an individual who ponders
the preliminary state of the earth as bohu. Rashi does not expand, but for him
both terms seem to refer to the same entity of the earth at creation. The dif­
ference between them is that the first is cognitive in description and begins
with the thinking human subject reflecting on that entity, while the second is
explanatory and begins with an attempted description of the erstwhile state
of the world.
In contrast to Rashi, some exegetes speak of the singular event of the begin­
ning in regard to tohu and bohu, but divide the two terms into representations
of altogether different objects of creation. Nahmanides, for example, classifies
tohu as prime hylic matter, and bohu as the initial form that begins to shape
the prime hylic matter.47 Just as for Rashi, for Nahmanides tohu is indeed

46  Rashi on Genesis 1:2: .‫ לשון רקות וצדו‬:‫ בהו‬.‫ אשטורדי"שון בלע"ז‬:‫תהו‬
47  Nahmanides on Genesis 1:2: ‫ והמלה‬,"‫ נקרא בלשון הקדש "תוהו‬,‫ שקראו היולי‬,‫והחומר הזה‬
‫ תוהא‬,‫ מפני שאם בא אדם לגזור בו שם‬,‫א) בתוהא על הראשונות‬,‫נגזרה מלשונם (קדושין מ‬
20 introduction

a­ stounding because it is prior to definition. Yet for Nahmanides, it is not a

state of contemplation in itself, but rather the paradoxical non-definition that
defines the non-definable hyle as that which is astoundingly beyond defini­
tion. In the process of creation, however, real definition is subsequently given
to it when it is clothed in form, marking the end of the non-defined beginning
and the beginning of formation.
All four of the fifteenth century thinkers being treated here seem to have
been swayed by an astounding contemplation of tohu through bohu as based
on definitions like those of Rashi, but as filtered through the hylomorphic type
of thinking as displayed by Nahmanides. Indeed, all discuss tohu and bohu in
relation to formation from chaos and prime matter, yet in a unique turn, all
utilize the concepts to offer new philosophical-kabbalistic conceptions of the
beginning of time and of that which atemporally came before. In so doing,
they draw directly on the likes of Nahmanides and other medieval kabbalistic
exegetical texts such as the Zohar and the Bahir, as well as on the philosophical
ideas of Aristotle and Plato. Within their formulations, they not only come to
challenge the admonition of the rabbis not to gaze at that which came before,
they also mark the beginning of entirely new trends in thought concerning
chaos and the beginning of order.48
The first chapter of this second section on tohu and bohu, which is the fifth
chapter of this book, examines Alemanno’s explorations into the meanings of
the terms tohu and bohu as the state of the beginning of creation. For Alemanno,
these are hylomorphically related to the Aristotelian notions of form and mat­
ter, but they are also kabbalistically related to the sefirot of Binah and the lower
seven sefirot, respectively. In the first regard, the hylomorphism connects to
concepts of the desire of form for matter and of matter for form, and to both
as “beginnings.” Here Alemanno seems to be influenced by the likes of the
eleventh century Andalusian philosopher Shlomo ibn Gabirol. For Alemanno,
however, both tohu and bohu are also symbols pointing beyond themselves
as beginnings to their origin in God. In the second regard, Alemanno hypos­
tatizes the seven lower sefirot as the beginning days of creation, and Binah as
the beginning of time that is beyond time. They are also cast by Alemanno

‫ והצורה הנלבשת לחומר‬.‫ כי לא לבש צורה שיתפשת בה השם כלל‬,‫ונמלך לקוראו בשם אחר‬
".‫ כלומר בו הוא‬,‫ והמלה מורכבת‬,"‫ הזה נקראת בלשון הקדש "בהו‬Nahmanides’ ideas of
form and matter resonate with the thinkers analyzed here, and will be evaluated in that
context, in greater detail below.
48  For the rabbinic admonition not to gaze at that which came before, see Mishnah Hagigah
2:1, which states: “Anyone who gazes at four things, it would be merciful to him if he had
not come into the world: what is above, what is below, what is before and what is after.”
Introduction 21

as the building blocks of creation. These ideas of the hylomorphism, the tem­
poral quality, and architectonic nature of tohu and bohu come together for
Alemanno in the concept of cyclical time, which is both philosophically and
kabbalistically charged.
The sixth chapter of this book looks at Pico, who like Alemanno, interprets
the notions of tohu and bohu in relation to hylomorphism and days, as well as
edifices built by a supreme architect. Though Pico does not state his sources,
an unpacking of his thought makes it clear that he was influenced by the
same sources at the heart of Alemanno’s thought, if not directly by Alemanno
himself. Unlike Alemanno, however, Pico ties the notions of tohu and bohu as
beginnings back to Christ. This chapter analyzes Pico’s Christological trans­
formations of these kabbalistic notions, in light of the Proclean concepts of
procession and return. Pico seems to be linking this to the kabbalistic notion
of tshuvah in Binah, i.e., “return,” or “repentance” through “Understanding,”
which relates to tohu, and which for Pico ultimately relates to Christ. Like
Alemanno, Pico turns to a concept of cyclical time, but it is my contention that
Pico attempts to universalize the concept by paradoxically particularizing it in
Christ.
The seventh chapter considers Abravanel, who also takes a hylomorphic
stance on the meaning of tohu and vohu. This is based largely upon Nahmanides,
but it is also moored within other kabbalistic texts that were utilized by both
Alemanno and Pico, such as Sefer ha-Bahir. Abravanel, however, finds it highly
important to assert creation ex nihilo, and thus he posits the creation of hylic
matter as the beginning of worldly creation. Yet for Abravanel, this beginning
of creation in matter is a double-edged sword, as it is also the beginning of
evil. I argue that here Abravanel is drawing more heavily on the classical ema­
nationist schema of Plotinus than his contemporaries being discussed in this
book, but that he uniquely moors this within the narrative of the Bahir and
within the classical mystical Midrash of the four sages who entered Pardes.
This is also connected to a philosophical explication of the sefirot. Similar to
both Alemanno and Pico, Abravanel discusses the move out of such evil by way
of a cosmic return to the beginning in a cyclical pattern of time.
The eighth and final chapter of this book looks at Leone Ebreo, for whom
Mother Chaos and Father Spirit replace the dualistic syzygy of tohu and bohu.
Leone’s take on the hylomorphic beginning of creation is similar to his prede­
cessors discussed in this book, but he uniquely takes his discussion into the
realm of Greek mythology. This seems to be an attempt to enter into dialogue
with non-Jewish contemporaries and to reach a wider Renaissance audience.
Nevertheless, I argue that at the heart of Leone’s explication of Greek mythol­
ogy lies the same Jewish exegesis utilized by his predecessors discussed in this
22 introduction

book. However, I take issue with an unsubstantiated Zoharic reading of Leone

that has entered into recent scholarship, and I attempt to show that much of
his interpretive program is rather based in classical commentary and Midrash.
This is highly universalized in a Proclean and Empedoclean philosophical key,
and for Leone, like for his predecessors, it also leads from the procession that is
the beginning of creation back to the beginning that is the end of creation in a
circular pattern of return.
The thinkers being discussed here, and their understandings of “begin­
nings” in both Wisdom and in tohu and bohu, provide a unique window into
early modern developments in both Jewish and general European thought.
Perhaps these thinkers influenced each other and were engaged in intellectual
exchange. Indeed, it is known that there was biographical, as well as ideational
overlap; but they rarely ever cite each other. At the very least, as we shall see,
they use common sources and they employ similar hermeneutics. It is my hope
to show in the following pages that the four thinkers discussed here represent
an intellectual curiosity common to their spatio-temporal milieu, in which the
universal comes into confrontation with the particular, but in which the par­
ticular emerges as an expression of the universal. This is not only due to the
meeting of the Bible and Greek philosophy, it is also, as we shall see, due to
the more ontological paradigm of particular language as an expression of uni­
versal thought. It is also based on the idea of creation as a mere simulacrum
of the Creator, and of the beginning itself as a necessary but imperfect pro­
cess that imperfectly both reveals and conceals the perfect origin. It is with this
that we begin, even if necessarily imperfectly, though hopefully revea­lingly, our
own discourse on the beginning of the world in Renaissance Jewish thought.
 PART 1
Bereshit—The Wisdom of the Beginning

∵
 Chapter 1

On the Wisdom of Language—Yohanan Alemanno

on the Word of God and the Simulacrum of
Creation

In Yohanan Alemanno’s Hay ha-‘Olamim, which, according to Umberto

Cassuto, was a continuously written text from 1470 to 1503, and which Cassuto
fervently claimed to be “Alemanno’s most important work,”1 Alemanno jumps
straight to the heart of the matter of beginnings. He does this by going to the
very beginning of the Torah itself:

The Torah began to make known the manner of the formation [of the
cosmos]; and it said Bereshit, i.e., In the beginning (Genesis 1:1). This is
a polysemic word, which indicates the material part of the word, entity
or event (ha-davar); and the temporal beginning; and the formal begin-
ning and cause; and the intellectual beginning. And this word (ha-davar,
or ha-shem) did not expound upon its essential parts, but only, for the
sake of mass understanding, it indicates the beginning of the word,
entity or event (ha-davar) in time. This is the least of the depictions of
the word Bereshit, as will be explained in my book that I have named
Einei ha-Edah.2

I would suggest that the word that I have translated here as “the word, entity
or event” (ha-davar) is deliberately marked by ambiguity for Alemanno, in that
like the word Bereshit being discussed, it too is polysemic, by way of the three
meanings that I have attached to it. Thus, his discussion of Bereshit here and
throughout could certainly be referencing the beginning of substance and/or
action; nevertheless, in its root, this word for “word,” “entity,” or “event” is fun-
damentally tied to the idea of spoken expression. Alemanno seems to want to

1  Umberto Cassuto, Ha-Yehudim be-Firenze bi-Tequfat ha-Renesans [Hebrew], translated from

the Italian by Menahem Hartum (Jerusalem: Kiryat Sefer, 1967), 241–242.
2  Yohanan Alemanno, Hay ha-‘Olamim (L’Immortale), parte I: la retorica, edizione, traduzi-
one e commento a cura di Fabrizio Lelli (Firenze: Olschki, 1995), 71: ‫והתחילה תורה להודיע‬
‫ ועל התחלה‬:‫ שהוא שם משותף מורה על חלק הדבר החמרי‬:‫ ואמרה בראשית‬:‫אופן היצירה‬
‫ ולא ביאר – הדבר – [השם] הזה בחלקיו‬.‫ ועל התחלה וסבה צוריית ועל התחלה שכלית‬:‫זמנית‬
‫העצמיים רק בהבנה המונית מורה על התחלת הדבר בזמן שזהו הציור הפחות שבציורי שם‬
.‫בראשית כאשר יתבאר בספרי אשר קראתי לי עיני העדה‬

© koninklijke brill nv, leiden, ���6 | doi ��.��63/9789004330634_003

26 Chapter 1

convey the complexities of Bereshit, not only as an entity or an event, but also,
and perhaps primarily, as a word.3 Bereshit is at once a material part, a tem-
poral beginning, a formal beginning and cause, and an intellectual beginning.
In other words, it is hyle, it is the inception, it is the Origin, and it is Wisdom.
Indeed, for Alemanno, it is all of these things; but it is also a word.
Before entering into the hyperlinguistic discussion of the spoken word of
Bereshit as the beginning of creation, it is important to hash out the philosoph-
ical meanings that Alemanno attaches to Bereshit as outlined in the above pas-
sage. On the surface, Alemanno’s reading of the four beginnings contained “in
the beginning” seems to be based on Aristotle’s four causes.4 This is especially
due to his mention of “the material part” and “the formal beginning and cause,”
which seem to resonate with Aristotle’s first and second causes, respectively.
Nevertheless, a closer look at his Einei ha-Edah, as explicitly suggested by him
in the above passage, reveals a different picture.
In a section of his Einei ha-Edah that seems to be the one referenced in Hay
ha-‘Olamim, which is entitled “Interpretations of the perplexing and polysemic
and synonymous and metaphoric letters and words from In the beginning until
And there was morning, day one,”5 Alemanno indeed interprets and explains
the polysemic, four-fold sense of the word “beginning,” i.e., reshit. The first of
these is a separate material part of an entity. Unlike Aristotle’s material cause,
which is exemplified by the bronze out of which a statue is made, Alemanno’s
material part is the ordinal “first” of all like material entities. He exemplifies
this with the term reshit as “first,” as utilized in the following biblical verse: The
first of your dough you shall set apart as a cake for a gift.6 Alemanno’s second
understanding of reshit is that which indicates a temporal beginning. This has
no direct correlation in the Aristotelian theory of causality, and is exemplified
by Alemanno with the biblical verse: Even though your beginning was small,
your end should greatly increase.7 Alemanno’s third understanding of reshit
seems to correlate directly with Aristotle’s formal cause, and according to
Alemanno, is that which causes something to move and rest by way of essence

3  This reading is supported by the fact that in ms. Mantova 21 of Hay ha-‘Olamim, in the phrase
stating that “the word did not expound upon its essential parts,” ‫ הדבר‬is crossed out and
‫השם‬, which is a clear synonym here for “the word,” is penned in, seemingly for clarity in
regard to this specific instance. See ms. Mantova 21, 4b.
4  See Aristotle, Physics II 3; Metaphysics V 2.
5  Ms. Paris BN Heb. 270, 6b: ‫הוראות האותיות והמלות הנבוכות והמשותפות והנרדפות והמושא־‬
.‫לות מבראשית עד ויהי בקר יום אחד‬
6  Numbers 15:20.
7  Job 8:7.
On the Wisdom of Language 27

and not by way of accident. Alemanno exemplifies this with the use of reshit as
“beginning” in the biblical verse: You are my first-born, my might and the begin-
ning of my strength.8 He explains:

Jacob said to his son; “you have been the beginning and the cause of my
might, which is the natural heat that is in me, and my strength, which is
my seed that gives birth to that which is similar. It moved from me and
rested first in the womb, for you were the first of the essence of my kind to
remain, and not by way of accident. For an accident does not persevere,
and does not leave behind one’s kind perennially.9

The father as the cause of the child is, perhaps not coincidentally, an explicit
example used by Aristotle for his efficient cause, which denotes something
external and effective. In contradistinction, for Alemanno, something of the
essence of the father carries over into the child in a type of proto-genetic
essentialist reading, in which the father is the formal beginning and cause of
the child.
Alemanno’s fourth understanding of reshit is perhaps the most complex. It
is that which indicates intellectual beginning, and is exemplified by the bibli-
cal verse: The beginning of wisdom (reshit Hokhmah) is fear of the Lord.10 Similar
to Aristotle’s efficient cause, Alemanno’s intellectual beginning “is the cause of
something else.”11 However, it is also simultaneously essential and purposeful,
and thus parallel to the Aristotelian formal and final causes, “for internal intel-
lectual fear is the essential cause of wisdom, since no ignoramus fears sin.”12
Here, Alemanno seems to be entering into the long debated Aristotelian idea
of nous as both active and passive, since he frames Wisdom, i.e., Hokhmah,
as both the divinely efficient and the divinely final cause, both of and for the
universe.13 It has its formal causality in the intellect, and as prime matter,
Hokhmah is the material cause. This idea of prime matter is expressed in a
later passage in Einei ha-Edah, where Alemanno writes:

8  Genesis 49:3.
9  Ms. Paris BN Heb. 270, 6b: ‫אמר יעקב לבנו אתה היית התחלה וסבה לכחי שהוא החום‬
‫הטבעי אשר בי ואוני שהוא זרעי המוליד בדומה אשר התנועע ממני ונח ברחם בראשונה כי‬
‫אתה הייתה ראשון לזה והעצמות להשאיר המין ולא בדרך מקרה כי המקרה לא יתמיד ולא‬
.‫ישאיר המין נצחי‬
10  Psalms 111:10.
11  Ms. Paris BN Heb. 270, 6b.
12  Ibid.
13  For the Aristotelian idea of nous, see Aristotle, De Anima III 5.
28 Chapter 1

Wisdom, i.e., Hokhmah is like the hyle, which clothes itself with the four
elements, and none of these are rejected by it. And it is the median of
existence, between that which is actual and that which is potential. And
it is the beginning and the first of all existents, and all of that which is
below Keter Elyon only exists from the truth of its existence (i.e., of the
existence of Hokhmah), and it is the beginning of existence.14

Not only does Alemanno thus bring Aristotelian causality full circle through
Hokhmah, he also ties this circle of causality back to the beginning in intellec-
tion and wisdom through his fanciful exegesis of the biblical word for begin-
ning that begins the bible itself, i.e., reshit. He is able to accomplish this move
by entering into the realm of kabbalistic hermeneutics, in which the beginning
itself takes on a hypostatic character.
Alemanno further emphasizes the hypostatic character of the beginning,
while also tying the idea of divine intellection as the median of existence
to actual, knowable speech, through recourse to the Zohar. In this manner,
he is able to tie his discourse on the beginning back to his triple entendre of
ha-davar in Hay ha-‘Olamim, and his understanding there of Bereshit as a spo-
ken word. Just as human intellection is externalized through the act of speech,
Hokhmah as the intellectual beginning “between that which is actual and that
which is potential” according to the above passage from Einei ha-Edah, har-
bors an intellectual depiction that begins to get silently uttered in Binah. In
the words of Alemanno, “speech and saying are representations of the internal
depiction that emanates outward and is revealed.”15 It is in this regard that
he quotes the Zohar, which discusses God’s speech in relation to the creation
of light:

From this comes the permission to discover that which is hidden: how
the world was created in detail. For until here it was in general, since
everything was hanging in the air, from the mystery of Ein Sof. This is
because of the fact that His power emanates within the supernal palace,

14  Ms. Paris BN Heb. 270, 14b: .‫החכמה היא כמו ההיולי המתלבש בד' יסודות ולא ישוללו ממנו‬
‫ והוא התחלה וראשית כל הנמצאים‬.‫והוא ממוצע במציאות בין מה שבכח ובין מה שבפעל‬
.‫וכל מה שלמטה מכ"ע לא נמצאו אלא מאמתת מציאותו והוא ראשית המציאות‬
15  Ms. Paris BN Heb. 270, 22b: .‫הדבור והאמירה הם חקוי הציור הפנימי המתפשט לחוץ ומתגלה‬
For more on the idea of speech, depiction and representation in Alemanno and in his
contemporaries Abraham de Balmes and Isaac Abravanel, see Brian Ogren, “Sefirotic
Depiction, Divine Noesis, and Aristotelian Kabbalah: Abraham ben Meir de Balmes and
Italian Renaissance Thought,” JQR vol. 104, no. 4 (Fall 2014): 591–599.
On the Wisdom of Language 29

which is the secret of Elohim, which is Binah. It is written concerning this

and God said. Indeed, supernally, “saying” is not specified, even though
Bereshit, i.e., In the beginning is a saying; but and God said is not written
concerning it.16 The language of speech should not be mentioned con-
cerning that which is above Binah, for and God said gives existence to the
question and the knowledge of the power that is secretly donated first to
Keter Elyon from the mystery of Ein Sof. From this, the prophets likened
the emanation of existence from the Cause to the effect to “saying,” or to
“speech,” in accordance with the Cause from which existence emanated.17

On the hypostatic level, liminal Bereshit here represents Hokhmah, which is

positioned between the intangible air that is Keter Elyon, and the more tan-
gible, though still mysterious Elohim, which is Binah. Thus, the saying and God
said (va-yomer Elohim) only begins in Binah. Notwithstanding, Binah is still
part of the liminal realm itself, and in fact stands between the unsaid saying
of Hokhmah and the said sayings that are below. These are the seven lower
sefirot, which proceed from Binah.18 Binah is part of the “supernal palace” that
is above, and it is not amongst the number of the seven lower sayings, but
it gives them voice. If Hokhmah as Reshit is the mind in which the saying of
God takes on an unsaid form, then Binah as Elohim is the mouth from which
the speech emerges and begins to take on a plurality of forms as said sayings.

16  This is a tacit reference to BT Rosh ha-Shanah 32a on Pirkei Avot 5:1, which states that
“The world was created with ten sayings.” In regard to the fact that only nine instances of
the term ‫ ויאמר‬appear in relation to commands in the first chapter of Genesis, the pas-
sage in BT Rosh ha-Shanah states that “the word Bereshit is also a saying, as it is written, By
the word of the Lord the heavens were made (Psalm 33:6).
17  Ms. Paris BN Heb. 270, 22b: ‫מכאן יש רשות למצא הגנוז איך נברא העולם בפרט שעד כאן‬
‫היה בכלל שהכל תלוי באויר מסוד א"ס כיון שנתפשט כחו בהיכל עליון שהוא סוד אלהים‬
‫ כתיב בו ויאמר שהרי למעלה לא כתיב בו אמירה בפרט אע"ג דבראשית מאמר‬.‫שהוא הבינה‬
‫ כי ויאמר הוא קיום‬,‫הוא אבל אין כתיב בו ויאמר שאין להזכיר לשון אמירה למעלה מבינה‬
‫ לזה המשילו הנביאים‬.‫לשאול ולדעת כח שנתרם תרומה בסתר מסוד א"ס ראשונה בכ"ע‬
.‫התפשטות המציאות מהעלה לעלול באמירה או בדבור כפי העלה אשר משם התפשט‬
This is a Hebrew translation, with slight variations, of Zohar 1:16b. It is not my intention
here to unpack this passage in its entirety, but rather to show how Alemanno is using it in
relation to his ideas of intellection and speech. For a deft analysis of the Zohar passage in
itself, see: The Zohar: Pritzker Edition, volume one, translation and commentary by Daniel
C. Matt (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2004), 122–124.
18  This reading concerning the seven lower sefirot is supported by an immediate reference
in this same context by Alemanno to Rabbi Judah of the Zohar, who states that there are
seven firmaments above that are given existence by the holy upper ones. See Zohar 3:9b.
30 Chapter 1

Binah, in this sense, is just as liminal, and is every bit a part of the beginning
as is Hokhmah.
On the philosophical level, Bereshit as the unsaid saying in the above Zohar
passage represents internal speech as intellection, which arises in the ethereal
mind of Keter and which is given external expression through Binah. Indeed,
the last sentence of the above passage seems to be a philosophical addition
made by Alemanno to the Zoharic passage, which in its emanatory language of
cause and effect, corresponds with another discussion that Alemanno carries
out, concerning the philosophical idea of creation ex nihilo. In that discussion,
he mentions Aristotle, Plato, Joseph ibn Shem Tov, Al-Ghazali, and the emana-
tionist theories of Avicenna.19 There, in a more philosophical tone, Alemanno
writes: “The creation and the formation [of the universe] are only from priva-
tion to existence. The allegory for this is the speech of one who speaks; don’t
you see that if the speaker were to fall silent, then the existence of his spoken
word would fall into privation?”20 Alemanno explicitly attributes the anal-
ogy to Plato, but like with the above Zohar passage in which he appeals to the
prophets, here he goes on to explicitly invoke King David, who is accredited
with saying: By the word of the Lord the heavens were made.21 Not only does
this give the idea biblical sanction, it subtly ties it back to the very first verse of
Genesis. There it is God, or Elohim, who in the above Zohar passage is Binah,
who created the heavens; here it is made clear that it is by means of the word
of the Lord that He does so.
It is not clear from where Alemanno took the above Zohar passage, which
he renders in Hebrew, and it is not clear whether he was familiar with the origi-
nal Aramaic text. One possibility is that he took it from Recanati, who quotes
it in full in his commentary on Genesis. Though in Recanati it is rendered in
Aramaic, and in Recanati, at least in the printed versions, there are slight varia-
tions from Alemanno’s rendering.22 It is also not clear to whom he is specifically
referring by mention of the prophets who “likened the emanation of existence
from the Cause to the effect to ‘saying,’ or to ‘speech,’ ” which is a mention that
does not appear in standard versions of the Zohar or in Recanati’s citation.

19  For more on these theories, see Avicenna, The Metaphysics of ‘The Healing’, a paral-
lel English-Arabic text, translated, introduced, and annotated by Michael E. Marmura
(Provo: Brigham Young University Press, 2005), book nine, 299–357.
20  Ms. Paris BN Heb. 270, fol. 10a: ‫ והמשל בזה‬.‫אין הבריאה והיצירה רק מההעדר אל המציאות‬
.‫ הלא תראה כי אם ישתוק המדבר יעדר מציאות הדבור‬.‫דבור המדבר‬
21  Psalm 33:6.
22  See Menahem Recanati, Commentary on the Torah, edited by Amnon Gross (Tel Aviv:
Aharon Barzani and Son, 2003), 18.
On the Wisdom of Language 31

One distinct possibility is that this is a reference to the prophetic Kabbalah of

the thirteenth century Spanish kabbalist Abraham Abulafia, who was active in
Italy and whose writings had a profound influence on Alemanno.
A passage from Liber de Causis concerning Cause and effect as related to
speech seems to support this possibility. The oldest extant text of Liber de
Causis is in Arabic, and it is an anonymous philosophical work that draws
heavily on Proclus’ Elements of Theology. A passage from this text is quoted
in a unique Hebrew version in Abraham Abulafia’s Imrei Shefer, in which he
attributes the book to Plato and calls it The Book of Supernal Substances (Sefer
ha-Atzamim ha-Elyonim). The specific passage brought by Abulafia shows up
several times in Alemanno’s works.23 In discussing the description of cause
through effect, the passage states:

The First Cause has a supernality that is above description, and tongues
indeed grow weary from trying to describe it, on account of its unity. For
it is above all unity. And indeed, all of the causes whose light is from the
First Cause can be described, for the First Cause illuminates the effect.
But it is not illuminated from another light, since it is the absolute and
complete Light that does not have any light above it. And on account of
this, its Light lacks all description, since there is no cause above it.24

For Abulafia, this is a prime example of philosophical thought concerning the

Creator, which is indeed worthy of study and can clarify much perplexity con-
cerning the creation of the world and the emanation of existents. Nevertheless,
such philosophical thought is limited in its reach, while the path of Kabbalah
as parallel to prophecy is not. Indeed, in continuation of the passage from Liber

23  I thank Moshe Idel for bringing the Abulafian connection to my attention. For a detailed
discussion of Alemanno’s usage of Liber de Causis, including the Abulafian connection,
and for full references, see Idel, “The Magical and Neoplatonic Interpretations of the
Kabbalah,” 137 and 163, fn. 177.
24  Abraham Abulafia, Sefer Imrei Shefer, edited by Amnon Gross (Tel Aviv: Aharon Barzani
and Son, 1999), 192. For Alemanno’s citations, see ms. Paris BN 849, 91a, 123a and ms. Berlin
832m 83a–b: ‫ ואמנם נלאו הלשונות מלספרה‬.‫העלה הראשונה יותר עליונות לה מן הספור‬
‫ ואמנם יסופרו העלות אשר אורן מאור העלה‬.‫בעבור אחדותה שהיא למעלה על כל אחדות‬
‫ והיא לא תאור מאור אחר לפי שהיא האור‬.‫ והוא שהעלה הראשונה תאיר עלולה‬.‫הראשונה‬
‫ ובעבור זה היה האור ההוא נעדר הספור לפי‬.‫הגמור המוחלט אשר אין למעלה ממנה אור‬
.‫ שאין למעלה ממנה עלה‬For an English version of this, see The Book of Causes [Liber de
Causis], translated from the Latin with an Introduction by Dennis J. Brand (Milwaukee:
Marquette University Press, 1981), 24–25. As we will see in chapter seven, this precise
passage was copied by Abravanel. Idel surmises that Alemanno was Abravanel’s source.
32 Chapter 1

de Causis, Abulafia explains: “The matter of Kabbalah, which is unique to our

nation [i.e., to Judaism], was not grasped by any of the philosophers . . . For
it was revealed to us from the giving of our Torah, with which we rose in
uniquene­ss above every nation and above every language.”25 According to
Abulafia, God not only created the world through the language of the Torah, he
also continually governs it through that language. As Moshe Idel explains, for
Abulafia, “language serves two functions: It is a means of expression of thought
and it enables one to attain prophecy.”26 Thus, by understanding its various
dynamics through radical hermeneutics such as letter combinations, numerol-
ogy and acrostics, one can open up its infinite paths, thereby opening paths to
the Active Intellect and to prophecy.
Nevertheless, for Abulafia, not all language gives access to prophecy. In fact,
his notion of Torah here as “unique to our nation [i.e., to Judaism]” supports
Elliot Wolfson’s insightful particularist reading of Abulafia on the more uni-
versalistic notion of the Active Intellect. As Wolfson notes, Abulafia holds “an
elitist position that, in the spirit of Halevi and in opposition to Maimonides,
is linked to the potentiality to attain prophecy and to the linguistic supremacy
of the national tongue Hebrew, which is also the matrix language of creation.”27
This casts the passage from Liber de Causis cited by Abulafia in a very specific
light. Indeed, the Light of the First Cause invoked by Liber de Causis is not
really above all language for Abulafia; in the case of the language of Torah, it is
actually attained by it.
Alemanno takes the quote from Liber de Causis in an entirely different direc-
tion than the Prophetic Kabbalah of Abulafia. For Alemanno, the passage is
more universalistically apophatic in character and ties into the emanationist
theory of speech that he draws out of the Zohar and that he subtly links to

25  Abulafia, Imrei Shefer, 194: ‫עניין הקבלה המיוחדת לאומתינו לא השיגה אחד מן הפילוסו־‬
.‫ כי זה נגלה לנו ממתן תורתינו שנתעלינו בה ביחוד על כל אומה ועל כל לשון‬. . . ‫פים‬
26  Moshe Idel, Language, Torah, and Hermeneutics in Abraham Abulafia (Albany: SUNY
Press, 1989), 22.
27  Elliot Wolfson, Venturing Beyond: Law and Morality in Kabbalistic Mysticism (Oxford:
Oxford University Press, 2006), 60. This is in contrast to Moshe Idel, who gives a meta-
phorical, more universalistic interpretation of Abulafia on the notion of Israel as related
to the Active Intellect (see Idel, Ben: Sonship and Jewish Mysticism (London and New York:
Continuum), 333 and 370–371). Notwithstanding, Wolfson’s more nuanced notion that for
Abulafia “the universal is enrooted in and radiates from the particular” seems to hit the
mark here. See Wolfson, “Textual Flesh, Incarnation, and the Imaginal Body: Abraham
Abulafia’s Polemic with Christianity ”, in Studies in Medieval Jewish Intellectual and Social
History: Fetschrift in Honor of Robert Chazan, ed. David Engel, Lawrence H. Schiffman and
Elliot R. Wolfson (Leiden and Boston: Brill, 2012), especially 200, fn. 41.
On the Wisdom of Language 33

“the prophets” there. He continues to quote the passage from Liber de Causis as
brought by Abulafia, returning to the apophatism of the First Cause:

The First Cause cannot be described, since it is above all description. And
speech does not reach it, since description is only by means of speech;
and speech is by means of the intellect; and the intellect is by means of
thought; and thought is by means of the imagination; and the imagina-
tion is by means of the senses. And the First Cause is above all of these
things, since it is their cause. As a result of this, it does not fall under
sense or imagination or thought or intellect or speech. Consequently,
it is not describable.28

In extension of this passage of Liber de Causis that he is perhaps quoting from

Abulafia, Alemanno strikes out on his own and states that “many of the sons
of Shem and Ever saw, and many looked upon the merkavah and upon all of
the Torah, and they did not find a name, and not a word, and not one letter
that teaches about the Source of existence, but rather the very first and most
simple effect within all of existence.”29 Though the reference here to those who
“looked upon the merkavah and upon all of the Torah” may be in line with
Abulafia’s distinct notion of merkavah as letter combination, in Alemanno’s
overall tenor here, we see a radical break with Abulafia.30 For Alemanno, the
First Cause is beyond mention or indication, even in the Torah itself.
What, then, is prophecy if a mastery of the language of the Torah cannot
reach beyond the apophatism of the philosophers, as Abulafia maintains it
can? To hash this out, Alemanno depends on the Hebrew word sippur, which
is utilized in the above passage for “description.” In a subtle play on words, he
states that “the prophets and those who looked upon the merkavah saw ten
essences that they called sefirot, since sippur, i.e., description, is possible in

28  Abulafia, Imrei Shefer, 193; Ms. Paris BN 849, 91a, 123a; ms. Berlin 832m 83a–b: ‫העלה הרא־‬
‫ ולא יגיענה הדבור והוא שהספור לא יהיה‬.‫שונה לא תסופר לפי שהיא עליונה יותר מן הספור‬
‫ והעלה‬.‫ והדמיון בחושים‬.‫ והמחשבה בדמיון‬.‫ והשכל במחשבה‬.‫ והדבור בשכל‬.‫אלא בדבור‬
‫ ומפני זה היתה בלתי נופלת‬.‫הראשונה למעלה מכל אלו הדברים כלם לפי שהי' עלה להם‬
.‫ ובעבור זה אינה מסופרת‬.‫תחת החוש והדמיון והמחשבה והשכל והדבור‬
29  Ms. Paris BN 849, 91b: ‫רבים מבני שם ועבר ראו והרבה צפו במרכבה ובכל התורה כולה ולא‬
‫מצאו לא שם ולא תבה ולא אות אחת מורה על המקור לכל נמצא כי אם על העלול היותר‬
.‫ראשון והיותר פשוט שבכל נמצא‬
30  For more on Abulafia’s translation of merkavah as “combination,” which fits well with his
notion of linguistic mysticism, see Gershom Scholem, Major Trends in Jewish Mysticism
(New York: Schocken Books, 1974, EPUB file), 205.
34 Chapter 1

regard to them.”31 For Alemanno, this applies even to the prophecies of Moses;
thus all divinely referential language in the Torah, which itself is emanated,
actually refers to the sefirot, which are also emanated.32 In line with this think-
ing, interpretation such as that of Alemanno derives from pondering Torah,
and formation derives from engagement with creation.
Torah as the written word of God and creation as the existential foundation
derive from speech and the sefirot, respectively. These derive from inner speech
and emanation, which are from the Source. This last entity as the First Cause is
actually a non-entity that is beyond even inner speech and upper emanation.
Thus, nothing can really be said about it, thought about it, or recede into it or
proceed from it. Here we have a radically asymptotic apophatism, in which
the simulacra that paradoxically manifest reality are only always simulacra of
other simulacra. Nevertheless, both language and the sefirot as emanated enti-
ties do carry a portion of the divine, just as speech carries a portion of the origi-
nal thought. Thus they do possess some truly divine truth, albeit imperfectly,
by which one can realize himself as an imperfect simulacrum of the divine,
created in the image and likeness of God.
In a fascinating passage in Einei ha-Edah that seems to be influenced by
the discourse drawn from Liber de Causis, Alemanno comments that even the
Torah of Moses is only a mere representation, a simulacrum of that which is
found within the Source:

Moses writes and the Lord speaks, for the simple spiritual existence
depicted in the supernal source emanates and comes forth into the mul-
tiplicity of intelligible and sensible existence in order to speak according
to the divine depiction, of which speech is a simulacrum. As it is said: By
the word of the Lord the heavens were made. For speech is a simulacrum
of the depiction, and the depiction is a simulacrum of the spiritual exis-
tent, since all is found within the Source. So it is with the simple spiritual
science depicted by the honored and awesome name; everything is found

31  Ms. Paris BN 849, 91b.: '‫וככה הנביאים והצופים צפו במרכבה עשרה עצמי' קראום ספירו‬
‫ מצד שהספור אפשרי בם‬This has a direct parallel in Alemanno’s Heshek Shlomo, where
he writes concerning the word sefirot: ‫והוא ג"כ מלשון ספור שאפשר לספר ולדבר בם‬
.‫ מה שלא יתכן לדבר מעולם המאציל אשר לא יספרהו לשון‬Quoted in Idel, “Between the
View of Sefirot as Essence and Instruments in the Renaissance Period” [Hebrew], Italia 3
(1982): 99.
32  For an extensive analysis of Alemanno’s understanding of the emanated sefirot, see Idel,
“Between the View of Sefirot.” There the idea of speech as emanation is mentioned, but
Idel especially outlines the analogy of the Ein-Sof and the sefirot to the soul and the affects
of the soul within the body. For this analogy, see especially pp. 102–111.
On the Wisdom of Language 35

from past and future and present, according to its ordering in the upper
and middle and lower world. It emanates and comes forth into existence.
The ear of Moses hears all of these, and he writes. He does not compose,
for writing is a simulacrum of speech.33

Here Alemanno expounds upon the passage from Psalms which we have seen
previously, regarding the creation of the heavens by the word of the Lord. Since
they were made by way of the spoken word, they are an imperfect likeness of
the depiction within the divine mind, which itself is an imperfect likeness
of the spiritual existent, which proceeds directly from the divine Source and is
beyond all likeness, depiction and speech. Herein lies a Proclean emanationist
chain of procession, from the perfect Source, to the depictions, to the multi-
plicity of spoken words that act as the building blocks of creation. The heavens,
which are the first entity created in the first verse of Genesis, reflect the divine
realm out of which they were created; yet they do so in an altogether imperfect
fashion.
In the same manner, Torah as the record of the spoken word of God is in
itself a mere simulacrum, i.e., an imperfect reflection of the divine realm. As
God’s expression to humanity, it is an imperfect externalization. But this is a
necessary condition. In the preface to the passage from Hay ha-‘Olamim with
which we began, concerning the beginning, Alemanno writes:

Go forth and see how the Torah spoke in human language in regard to
depictive understanding. For this Moses, the man and his God, speaks in
the language of his people in all of his Torah. In regard to the speculative
part, he came at the beginning in order to tell of the power of the act of
the beginning, Ma’aseh Bereshit, to those who are of flesh and blood. He
told those words, entities or events according to their names and their
idioms alone, and not according to their definition or the meaning of
their essence. And the Torah began to make known the manner of forma-
tion; and it said Bereshit, i.e., In the beginning.34

33  Ms. Paris BN Heb. 270, 7b: ‫ כי כאשר המציאות הרוחני הפשוט המצוייר‬,‫משה כותב וה' מדבר‬
‫במקור העליון הוא מתפשט ויוצא אל המציאות הרב המושכל והמוחש לדבר בציור אלהי‬
‫שהדבור הוא חקויו כאמרו בדבר ה' שמים נעשו כי הדבור חקוי הציור והציור חקוי הנמצא‬
‫ כן המדע הרוחני הפשוט המצוייר בשם הנכבד והנורא‬.‫הרוחני כי הכל הוא נמצא במקור‬
‫הכל הנמצא מעבר ועתיד והוה כפי סדורו בעולם העליון והאמצעי והתחתון התפשט ויצא אל‬
.‫ כי הכתב הוא חקוי הדבור‬,‫מציאות אזן משה שומעת את כל אלה וכותב לא מחבר‬
34  Ms. Mantova 21, 4b and Hay ha-‘Olamim (L’Immortale), 71: ‫וצא נא וראה נא איכה דברה‬
‫ כי זה משה האיש ואלהיו בכל תורתו מדבר כלשון‬:‫תורה כלשון בני אדם בידיעה הציורית‬
36 Chapter 1

The idea that the Torah speaks in human language is quite common within the
Talmud, though it is usually applied to cases of repetition, and usually implies
that such repetitive words in the Bible should not be understood as indicating
anything beyond simple emphasis.35 Thinkers like Bahya ibn Paquda and Moses
Maimonides turned this idea on its head, making it into an apophatic notion of
equivocal language.36 Such apophatism seems to be Alemanno’s tenor, and he
includes within his equivocation an idea of names vs. ­definitions, or idioms vs.
essences; even in regard to the beginning, the former can be known by men of
flesh and blood, while the latter is truly beyond all knowing.
From its very beginning, in regard to the beginning, then, the Torah of
Moses is a human document. In fact, for Alemanno, it is even more distant
from internal divine depiction and the spiritual existent than is the spoken
word, since it is written. As he states above and elsewhere, “writing is a simu-
lacrum of speech.”37 If the emanationist chain of procession unto the creation
of the heavens is Proclean in character, the idea of written Torah as espoused
by Alemanno has deep resonance with Aristotle, who in his De Interpretatione
writes: “Now spoken sounds are symbols of affections in the soul, and writ-
ten marks symbols of spoken sounds.”38 This is indeed parallel to Alemanno’s
idea in the quote above, which may also be based on the Proclean Liber de
Causis, that writing is a simulacrum of speech, and “speech is a simulacrum
of the depiction, and the depiction is a simulacrum of the spiritual existent,
since all is found within the Source.” In a subtle turn, then, through Liber de
Causis, Alemanno is able to combine a form of Platonism with Aristotelianism,
through Moses. Expression and emanation commingle, as revelation and
creation become one.
As Jonathan Garb mentions in a related context, “linguistic power is what
allows for the actualization of divine potential, and in itself it allows for the

'‫ ואמר הדברי‬:‫ בחלק העיוני אשר בא בתחילה להגיד כח מעשה בראשית לבשר ודם‬:‫עמו‬
‫ והתחילה תורה להודיע אופן‬:‫ לא בגדרם והוראת מהותם‬:‫ההם בשמותם בלשונותם לבד‬
.‫ ואמרה בראשית‬:‫היצירה‬
35  See, for example, BT Nedarim 3a, 22a; BT Arachin 3a; BT Baba Metzia 31b, 94b; BT Sanhedrin
64b, 90b; BT Zevachim 108b.
36  For ibn Paquda’s take, see Lelli, Hay ha-‘Olamim (L’Immortale), 104, fn. 233. For Maimonides,
see The Guide of the Perplexed (I, 26), volume I, translated with an Introduction and Notes
by Shlomo Pines (Chicago and London: University of Chicago Press, 1963), 57.
37  This idea is echoed again in a later passage, ms. Paris BN Heb. 270, 20a: ‫"אותות" יאמר על‬
‫דבר שהוא מורה על דבר אחר כמו האות שהוא סימן לנביא והאות הנכתב שהוא חקוי וסימן‬
.‫הדבור‬
38  Aristotle, De Interpretatione, translated by J.L. Ackrill, in The Complete Works of Aristotle:
The Revised Oxford Translation, volume one, edited by Jonathan Barnes (Princeton:
Princeton University Press, 1984), 25.
On the Wisdom of Language 37

revelation of God within the world.”39 And indeed, it is through the word of
that Lord that, for Alemanno, creation meets revelation. Torah is on par with
the heavens in terms of its distance from the Source, since the heavens are
by the word of the Lord and are not the word of the Lord; both the Torah and the
heavens are one further step removed. For Alemanno, such distancing is necessary
and inevitable, exhibiting the dual beginning as marked by the heavens and the
Torah, of a shift from emanation to creation, and from concealment to revelation.
Creation meets revelation, as both are an outpouring, and ultimately a simula-
crum of the word of God, which remains unspoken within His hidden, inner self.
Alemanno draws out the inevitable distancing that occurs through the
externalization and revelation of the word by reference to Pseudo-Empedocles’
Book of Five Substances. In his Collectanaea, as well as in the introduction to his
Einei ha-Edah, Alemanno quotes this work at length:

It is not possible for a wise man to bring forth all that is in his intellect in a
simple spiritual manner, by means of physical speech. But it is required of
a wise man to be careful to hint at how it is that he should seek to show to
his fellow that which is sought. For there is no man that can bring forth all
that is in his intellect by way of speech. And when one who seeks knows a
matter and has observed that which is sought to the point that he can see
it, he can bring it forth more so than the first person. But it is possible that
it will be little, for speech is not of the same measure in every person, but
is by way of the measure of the clarity of the intellect. It is possible for the
intellect to be clear and for speech to be weak by way of the instrument
of speech. And it is possible for the instrument of speech to be clear and
for speech to expand, while the intellect is not on the same level of clarity as
speech and its expansion. When the two are equal, then the exegesis is good
for the entire time of the speech, according to the people of that time. For
the people of earlier times were wiser, and their intellects were clearer than
the intellects of the people of our time. Thus it will be for those who come
after us. The words of the ancients are deep for those who come later.40

39  Jonathan Garb, Manifestations of Power in Jewish Mysticism: From Rabbinic Literature
to Safedian Kabbalah [Hebrew] (Jerusalem: Magnes Press, 2004), 146: ‫הכוח הלשוני הוא‬
.‫ וממילא את התגלות האל בעולם‬,‫המאפשר את יציאתו של הכוח האלוהי אל הפועל‬
40  Ms. Oxford Bodleian Neubauer 2234, 152b–153a: ‫אמר ולא יתכן לחכם שיכול להוצי' כל‬
‫ אבל המחוייב לחכם ויזהר עליו לרמוז היאך‬.‫מה שהוא בשכל במין פשוט רוחני בדבור גופני‬
‫ כי אין אדם שיוכל להוציא כל מה שבשכל בדיבור וכשידע‬.‫יבקש ויורה (ל)זולתו לזה המבוקש‬
.‫המבקש הענין וישקיף על המבוקש עד שיראהו יוכל להוציא אותו אל הענין יותר מהראשון‬
.‫ כי הדבור אינו בכל בני אדם על שיעור אחד אבל על שעור זכות השכל‬.‫ואפשר שיהיה מעט‬
‫ואפשר שיהיה השכל זך ויהיה הדבור חלש מצד (הכלי) ואפשר שיהיה כלי הדבור זך ויתרחב‬
‫ וכשיהיו שוים אז יהיה הביאור‬.‫הדבור ולא יהיה השכל זך כשעור זכות הדבור והרחבתו‬
38 Chapter 1

Here, Pseudo-Empedocles applies the metaphysical notion of inner and outer

speech to the human realm, asserting an inevitable gap between cognition
and expression. In the case of Einei ha-Edah, Alemanno is applying it to his
own commentary upon the Torah. There, playing upon his name Yohanan
and the Hebrew word for ‘grace,’ hanan, Alemanno prefaces the above pas-
sage with a boastful quip: “Perhaps my voice will be of grace to the populace,
and the words of my mouth will suit the will of the people of my generation.”41
The immodesty is partially attenuated through the assertion that “the people
of earlier times were wiser,” which fits with Alemanno’s respect for the prisca
sapientia tradition, and in his case is attributed the temporal proximity of the
ancients to the source of both creation and revelation.
Notwithstanding the attenuation, Alemanno does seem to be setting him-
self up as the Moses of his generation.42 The analogy is subtly illustrated by
an addition to the Pseudo-Empedoclean quote in his Einei ha-Edah. There he
writes: “That which transpires from depiction to speech also transpires from
speech to writing.”43 Indeed, there is no mention of either ‘depiction’ or ‘writing’
in the Pseudo-Empedoclean passage, and this comment seems to relate more
to the earlier examined discussion concerning Moses’ writing as a simulacrum
of the Lord’s speech, in which both ‘depiction’ and ‘writing’ are key elements.
Given its placement here, however, this statement seems to be juxtaposing
the two passages, thereby setting Alemanno up as a new Moses, while setting
up his commentary as a new simulacrum for God’s speech. Alemanno may be
further from the Source than his predecessors and forefathers, but he explic-
itly states that God has commanded him to bring forth his pure and refined
word in order to expand the deep words of the ancients.44 Perhaps the word is
limit­ed in its ability to plumb the depths, but as a simulacrum, it does seem to
be given over to a widening of those depths.
This premodern idea, as based upon Pseudo-Empedocles, is parallel to
a postmodern hermeneutic brought forth by Elliot Wolfson, who writes:

‫ כי אנשי הזמן הקדום היו יותר נבונים ושכליהם‬.‫הטוב ולכל זמן דיבור כפי אנשי אותו הזמן‬
.‫יותר זכים משכלי אנשי זמננו וכן יהיו מה שאחרנו ודברי הראשוני' עמוקי' אצל האחרונים‬
See also ms. Paris BN Heb. 270, 1a. For variant Hebrew versions of this same passage, by
means of which I have filled in some of the blanks in brackets above, see David Kaufmann,
Studien über Salomon ibn Gabriol (Budapest: Alkalay, 1899), pp. 18, 31, 51.
41  Ms. Paris BN Heb. 270, 1a: .‫אולי יחונן קולי לבני אדם ויהיו לרצון אמרי פי לאנשי דורי‬
42  For an interesting analysis of a similar turn in the thought of Nahman of Bratslav
(1772–1810), as based upon charisma, see Shaul Magid, Hasidism Incarnate: Hasidism,
Christianity, and the Construction of Modern Judaism (Stanford: Stanford University Press,
2015), 36.
43  Ibid.: .‫כמו יקרה מדבור אל המכתב כמו שיקרה מציור אל הדבור‬
44  Ibid.: ‫ למען הרחיב את‬,‫קמתי כדבורה לדבר צחות ואמרות צרופות ומזוקקות כאשר צויתי‬
.‫דברי חכמי הדורות הראשונים העמוקים מאד אצל האחרונים‬
On the Wisdom of Language 39

“In semiotic terms, one can meaningfully posit that speech (the linguistic
gesture expressed as the verbal gesticulation, graphic inscription, or men-
tal avowal of word-signs) has a terminus, but semiosis (the interpretation of
those signs) is infinite.”45 For Alemanno, however, this is based on the idea
of an Absolute Source. It paradoxically involves a continual distancing from
the depths of that infinite Source, but divine mandate related to clarity of the
individual intellect and to inner vision seems to attenuate the paradox and to
allow, albeit in an imperfect manner, for reputable commentary.
In this vein, Alemanno’s commentary begins, perhaps not coincidentally,
with reference to the story of the golem. Indeed, the golem is perhaps the
archetypical simulacrum, related to the creation through language of a speech-
less creature in the mere image of its creator. As Jonathan Garb astutely notes
regarding the myth of the golem, “the power of man to create in his own image
derives from the essence of his own being as in the image of God.”46 This is
certainly the case for Alemanno, for whom the notion of image as simulacrum
is key to the entire process of creation. His concept of the golem thus unsur-
prisingly shows up in the very beginning of his commentary on the beginning
of the bible, in relation to the act of creation itself. As we have seen, Alemanno
tacitly casts himself as a new Moses and explicitly writes that his commen-
tary was sanctioned by God Himself; though he does not begin with Bereshit.
Rather, he conspicuously begins:

The act of the beginning, Ma’aseh Bereshit, is knowledge of the formation

[of the world] as made known by Sefer Yetzirah. And its ultimate goal is
knowledge of how to create a world, as the sages of blessed memory have
said: “If the righteous so desired, they could create a world.”47 And every-
thing is according to the wisdom of letter combinations, which Bezalel
knew.48 And Abaye and Rava created a man,49 and a third-grown calf.50

45  Wolfson, Alef, Mem, Tau, xiii.

46  Garb, Manifestations of Power, 280: ‫כוחו של האדם ליצור בצלמו נובע מהיותו עצמו בצלם‬
.‫האל‬
47  BT Sanhedrin 65b.
48  BT Berakhot 55a.
49  It is not clear why Alemanno attributes the creation of the calf to Rava and Abaye, when
in BT Sanhedrin 65b, the Amoraim involved are Rabbis Hanina and Oshaia. For more on
this mistake, which is also later made by Moses ben Menahem Graff of Prague and by
Naftali Bakharakh, see Idel, Golem: Jewish Magical and Mystical Traditions on the Artificial
Anthropoid (Albany: SUNY Press, 1990), 188 fn. 18.
50  Ms. Jerusalem 8°598 fol. 11b: ‫מעשה בראשית הוא ידיעת היצירה הנודע מספר יצירה ותכ־‬
‫ליתו לדעת לברא עלמא כמו שאמרו ז"ל אי בעו צדיקי אברו עלמא והכל בחכמת צרוף‬
.‫ ואביי ורבא אברו גברא ועגלא תלתא‬.‫ האותיות שידע בצלאל‬See also Ms. Oxford Bodleian
Neubauer 2234, 17a: ‫מעשה בראשית הוא ידיעת מהיות הדברי' באופן שידע הצורות לא לבד‬
40 Chapter 1

While Alemanno does not explicitly employ the term ‘golem’ here, it is pre-
cisely that body void of form that he is attaching here to the act of Bereshit.
On the surface, the move seems magical, in that through proper manipulation,
one can create. While the magical aspect is certainly at play for Alemanno, fur-
ther analysis also reveals philosophical sensibilities as based on the concept of
the simulacrum. First, if one can create, then that means that there exists a res-
idue of the divine, even within the imperfect likenesses that are accessible to
humanity. Second, if one can create a world, this means that he is not merely a
microcosmos; he is what I would call a “microtheos,” and in gaining the knowl-
edge and ability to create, he undergoes what I would call “microtheosis.”51 This
is a form of apotheosis with an emphasis upon the scaled parallels between the
macranthropos and the microtheos, and it has implications not only for an
understanding of the self as partially self-fashioned, it also has implications for
an understanding of God through an understanding of the self-fashioned self.
In his untitled treatise, Alemanno elaborates on this point. He writes con-
cerning Abraham, the ostensible forefather of monotheism and the purported
author of Sefer Yetzirah:

He looked upon his body and his own formulation and he saw the ten fin-
gers of his hands and the ten toes of his feet, and his ideas concerning the
number ten fell upon him; for this contains a supernal spiritual secret.
He also saw the letters engraved in his soul, and he carved them out from
each other and he combined them with each other, and he succeeded by
mysterious wonders to create new creatures that possessed a vital soul.
This was like the ancient sages who created a calf and the likeness of a
man, though he did not have the power of speech. He saw that by way of
these letters all creatures were created, the supernal ones above and the
lower ones below.52

‫ וידיעת המהיות הו' חכמת הנבואה‬.‫פעולתם כי ידיעת הפעולו' הוא חכמת הטבע הנודע בעיון‬
‫הנודע כהשקפה פתאומית ומזה ימשך ידיעת שרשי הנמצאו' ההוות נפסדו' באופן שידע‬
‫הרכבת אותם השרשי' בגלגל השכל הנקרא גלגל האותיות וידע לצרפם כחכ' ספר יצירה עד‬
‫כי מתוך אות' הידיעה ידע לברא בריאה כמעשה אביי ורבא דברו עגלא תלתא כמו שאמרו‬
.‫ידע לצרף אותיו' שבהם נברא העולם‬
51  This is in line with what Shaul Magid, playing off of the rich studies of Daniel Boyarin,
Jacob Neusner, and especially Elliot Wolfson, has called “incarnational thinking.” Magid
does make the distinction between incarnation and theosis as the divine becoming
human vs the human becoming divine, but notes the important structural similarity
(Hasidism Incarnate, 88). Here I prefer to use the term “microtheosis” in order to main-
tain scaled parallels and to contrast with ideas of microcosmic similitude.
52  Ms. Paris BN 849, 79a: .‫הביט בגופו ובמתכונתו וראה עשר אצבעות ידיו ועשר אצבעות רגליו‬
‫ גם ראה חקיקת האותיות בנפשו‬.‫ונפלו לו רעיוניו על מספר העשר כי יש לו סוד עליוני רוחני‬
On the Wisdom of Language 41

Moshe Idel has noted the autodidactic character by which Alemanno portrays
Abraham’s enlightenment, which is important for both Alemanno’s own sensi-
bilities as an autodidactic kabbalist, and for the idea that revelation can come
through contemplation.53 What is important to note for our purposes is that
Abraham’s autodidactic contemplation here was as a microtheistic simula-
crum. By looking at his own body and mind, he was able to come to an under-
standing of both the sefirot and of divine speech. By manipulating the latter,
i.e., the letters engraved within his soul, he was able to create.
Of significance is that fact that while parallels are made in the above pas-
sage between Abraham’s fingers and toes and the sefirot, and between his inner
speech and the divine letters, no such parallel is made to the First Cause, or
Ein-Sof. Even in understanding the secret element of the act of the beginning,
Abraham began with his existential being in the world as parallel to that which
was already emanated. Beyond such introspection, no thought was possible.
Moreover, what Abraham was able to create was itself only a simulacrum, “the
likeness of a man” that did not possess speech. Here the paradigm comes full
circle, for as we recall, that which is above Binah in Bereshit is an unsaid saying,
while that which is beyond Keter in the realm of Ein-Sof, or the First Cause,
cannot even be said to be a saying. The difference lies in the fact that the upper
realm is above speech, while the golem is below speech. While the First Cause
creates through a process of emanated speech that it is simultaneously always
beyond, the golem is formed through a process of created speech that it simul-
taneously does not contain. Nevertheless, the two seem to run parallel as the
edges of creation that are beyond speech, the one unbound by it and the other
created by it. By contrast, humanity as represented by Abraham and the ema-
nated elements of the divine as represented by language and the sefirot run
parallel as the nodes between the ineffable and the concrete that allow for the
beginning of creation.
Such nodes that are separate from the First Cause but that somehow bring
it into contact with existence are represented by Alemanno through “the wis-
dom of letter combinations” by which the world and the golem are created,
as applied to the word Bereshit. “The letters bet and yod and tav of Bereshit,”
writes Alemanno, “when they are combined, are read as bayit,” i.e., ‘house,’ or
alternately bet, the second letter of the Hebrew alphabet. He continues: “And

‫וחצבן זו מזו וצרפן זו בזו ועלתה בידו פלאות מפלאות האלה לברא בריות חדשות בעלי נפש‬
‫ עד כי ראה כי‬.‫חיוני' כחכמי קדם אשר בראו עגל ודמות אדם גם כי כח הדבר לא היתה לו‬
.‫ באלה האותיות נבראו היצורי' כולם עליוני' למעלה ותחתוני' למטה‬See also Idel, Golem, 168.
53  Idel, Golem, 167, and 187, fn. 10. For a more recent treatment of autodidacticism including
Alemanno, see Avner Ben-Zaken, Reading Hayy ibn-Yaqzan: A Cross-Cultural History of
Autodidacticism (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2011), especially pp. 73–75.
42 Chapter 1

the word rosh,” i.e., ‘head,’ or alternately, ‘beginning,’ “remains in the middle of
the house (or the letter bet).”54 According to Alemanno, this all teaches about
an effect within an effect. The first effect is Keter, i.e., ‘Crown,’ and like a house
that encompasses all that is in it, it encompasses the all. The second effect,
which is the head inside of the crown, is called Hokhmah, which is the begin-
ning of all existents.55 Alternately read, the rosh, i.e., the ‘beginning’, is within
the letter bet, which encompasses all as the beginning letter of the Torah.
Commenting on the Bahir, which may have influenced Alemanno here, Elliot
Wolfson makes a statement that is fitting to Alemanno’s discourse: “Beginning,
the beit with which Torah begins, is the opening that encloses the enclos-
ing that opens, the questioning utterance that silences the silence of alef by
exposing the shelter of the sheltered exposure.”56 But what about the origin
of the beginning, the cause of the effects, that which is before both opening
and enclosing, within the silence of the alef of Wolfson’s Bahiric metaphor, or
within the One, before the two effects of Alemanno? Alemanno explains:

Behold, the Creator created the first two effects and brought them
into existence. His name and His vestige are not mentioned, for there
does not exist amongst all of the names a name that points to Him, since
He is not defined and cannot be inscribed by a letter or a sign or a name.
For there is no word, entity, or event that is above Him, and He cannot
be known except by way of His actions and His creations, which He cre-
ated and emanated. And those things that are emanated from Him are
included in the name Elohim, which includes the sefirot and the angels
and the intellects. He also created the wheel of letters that are included
in the lamed-bet netivot, i.e., the thirty-two paths of wisdom by means of
which the creatures were created.57

54  Ms. Paris BN Heb. 270, 17b: ‫ אשר בהצרפם יקראו בית‬,‫ה"בית" וה"יוד" וה"תיו" מבראשית‬
‫ וישאר ראש באמצע הבית‬See also fol. 19b; Ba’al ha-Turim (Jacob ben Asher) on Genesis
1:1; and Tikkunei ha-Zohar, Tikkun 3. In both of these cases, the bayit referred to is related
to beit ha-mikdash, i.e., the Temple, which does not seem to be the case with Alemanno.
55  Here Alemanno may be influenced by the Bahir §II, 123, which states: “Why is beit closed
on every side and open in front? To teach you that it is the house of the world. Thus,
the holy One, blessed be he, is the place of the world but the world is not his place.
Do not read beit but bayit, as it is written, ‘Through wisdom a house is built’,” [Proverbs
24:3] (translated by Wolfson, Alef, Mem, Tau, 124).
56  Wolfson, Alef, Mem, Tau, 124.
57  Ibid.: ‫הנה שני עלולים ראשונים ברא אותם הבורא והמציאם אשר לא נזכר שמו וזכרו כי אין‬
‫בכל השמות שם מורה עליו כי לא יגדר ולא ירשם באות וסימן ושם כי אין למעלה ממנו דבר‬
‫ והאצולים ממנו הם נכללים בשם‬.‫ולא יודע כי אם מצד פעולותיו וברואיו אשר ברא והאציל‬
On the Wisdom of Language 43

Here the apophatic nature of the First Cause and the simultaneously creative
nature of language come together. Elohim, which has been discussed above as
the divine saying that emanates through speech, here is included in the said,
or the emanated, and includes within itself all those entities that are emanated
as well. The First Cause, by contrast, is beyond saying; but in tandem with the
emanated elements of Elohim, it also created the representative letters of
saying. Alemanno’s mention of the lamed-bet netivot in this context seems to
be deliberate. Not only are these “the thirty-two paths of wisdom by means
of which the creatures were created,” as set down in Sefer Yetzirah and as uti-
lized in a combinatory manner for the creation of the golem. Nor are they
only representative of the ten sefirot and the twenty-two letters of Hokhmah,
or Reshit, which are the emanated entities of wisdom and of the beginning.
Hyperliterally, as the letters lamed and bet, they are also the letters that frame
the Torah, thereby relating back to the idea of bet rosh, i.e., the beginning con-
tained in the letter bet as alluded to by the word Bereshit. Bet encompasses
the beginning and along with lamed contains the all, yet the author of the all
remains utterly beyond.
In a later, parallel passage regarding the rosh inside of the bayit, which
constitutes Bereshit, Alemanno reverts to microcosmic anthropomorphism,
writing that “just as the rosh, the head, is a tool for wisdom (Hokhmah), and
from there comes forth feeling and movement for the entire body, so too is the
second effect full of wisdom to give existence, feeling and movement to each
and every person amongst the various types of existents.”58 Hokhmah stands
at the head of existents and is their beginning, and is also the beginning of
that which is attainable. Keter, by contrast, as symbolized by the bet that both
precedes Hokhmah as reshit and encompasses it as its house, is beyond attain-
ment. In this way, it partakes in the apophatism that characterizes the First
Cause, and through the bet that gives shelter to the beginning that is Wisdom,
also perhaps points beyond itself to that First Cause that is beyond even the
first letter and the beginning of the Torah itself.

‫אלהים הכולל הספירות והמלאכים והשכלים גם ברא גלגל האותיות הנכללות בל"ב נתיבות‬
.‫חכמה שעל ידיהם נבראו הנבראים‬
58  Ibid., 19b–20a: ‫ כן‬,‫ ומשם יצא ההרגשה והתנועה לכל הגוף‬,‫כמו שהראש הוא כלי החכמה‬
‫העלול השני מלא חכמה לתת מציאות והרגשה ותנועה לכל איש ואיש מאישי הנמצאות‬
.‫ למיניהם‬See also Idel, “Between the View of Sefirot,” 107–108.
 Chapter 2

On the Wisdom of Christ—Giovanni Pico della

Mirandola on the Truth of the Son and the Creation
of the World

Like Alemanno, Giovanni Pico della Mirandola resorts to letter combinations

when attempting to hash out the secrets of the beginning of creation as con-
tained within the word Bereshit. For Pico, as for Alemanno, this involves an
elevated status for the letter bet. Similarly, it involves hypostatization in divine
speech. Also for Pico, as for Alemanno, the exegetical method as applied to
Bereshit points to that which is beyond through a process of microtheosis. Both
thinkers also hold wisdom to be at once essentially divine yet emanated, as a
tool utilized in the process of creation. Yet despite the similarities between
Alemanno and Pico, there is at least one major difference; for Pico, in contra-
distinction to Alemanno, all of this discourse concerning the beginning takes
on a markedly Christological character.
Similar to Alemanno, for whom the beginning comes in the middle of the
second letter bet, which is the beginning of the beginning of the Torah, for Pico
too, the elevation of the second letter of the Hebrew alphabet to a primary
status speaks to a complex understanding of an otherwise ordinally temporal
existence. For Pico, this takes fullest expression in his Conclusiones, where he
writes:

Whoever profoundly considers the fourfold state of things—the first

concerning the unity and stability of indwelling, the second concerning
­procession, the third concerning reversion, the fourth concerning beatific
reunion—will see that the letter Bet operates the first with the first letter,
the middle with the middle letter, the last ones with the last letters.1

What are the first, middle and last letters, and how are they connected to
the fourfold state of things through Bet? One possible answer rests on the
Midrashic dictum that Emet, i.e., ‘Truth’ is the seal of God, due to the fact that

1  S.A. Farmer, Syncretism in the West: Pico’s 900 Theses (1486): The Evolution of Traditional
Religious and Philosophical Systems (Tempe: Medieval and Renaissance Texts and Studies,
1998), 545.

© koninklijke brill nv, leiden, ���6 | doi ��.��63/9789004330634_004

On the Wisdom of Christ 45

alef is the first letter of the alphabet, mem is the middle, and tav is the last.2
According to this Midrash, the encompassing order of the three letters corre-
sponds to God’s statement in Isaiah: I am the first, and I am the last, and beside
Me there is no God;3 The God of truth is the beginning, the middle, and the
end. ‘Truth’ is thus a divinely unitive expression of the All as cast by ordinal
markers, whether temporally, spatially, or hierarchically defined, of the first,
the central, and the last.4
This Midrash can certainly be applied to Pico’s conclusion. In relation to
“the fourfold state of things,” ‘truth’ possibly relates to “the unity and stability
of indwelling.” It is God’s presence and God’s abode, whether on earth and in
time, or whether beyond both. The alef of Emet combines with the letter bet to
form Av, i.e., ‘Father’, possibly relating to “procession.” The Father is the source,
out of which creation flows forth in a stream of emanation. The mem of Emet
combined with the letter bet is more obscure, as neither bam nor mav have any
inherent meaning; perhaps it is meant to form the acronym Ma’aseh Bereshit,
which in its entire structure and purpose possibly relates to “reversion.” Under
this formulation, the entire act and process of creation is for the purpose of
cyclical completion and return. Finally, the last letters of the alphabet, shin
and tav, combined with bet between them form Shabbat, possibly relating to
“beatific reunion.” This is the final act of creation and the final repose back in
the bosom of the Father.
The Midrash on which this reading of Pico’s conclusion is based was avail-
able to Pico, both through Bereshit Rabbah and Devarim Rabbah, which are
both known to have been a part of his library.5 Moreover, in a short kabbalistic
treatise entitled Sha’ar ha-Shamayim, which was translated into Latin for Pico
by Flavius Mithridates, this theory is explicitly laid out in relation to the sefirah
of Hokhmah, which, as the second sefirah, is inherently related to the letter
bet. Regarding the thirty-two paths of Wisdom, Sha’ar ha-Shamayim states that
“they will be sealed by the seal of truth, which is beginning, middle and end,

2  Bereshit Rabbah 81:2; Devarim Rabbah 1:10; Shir ha-Shirim Rabbah 1:46.
3  Isaiah 44:6.
4  For a specifically temporal reading of this rabbinic dictum, see: Wolfson, Alef, Mem, Tau. On
page xi he explicitly states: “The inspiration and framework for my exploration . . . was the
rabbinic teaching that the word emet, ‘truth’, comprises the first, middle, and last letters of
the Hebrew alphabet: alef, mem, and tau. These letters serve, in turn, as semiotic signposts for
the three tenses of time: past, present, and future.”
5  Pearl Kibre, The Library of Pico Della Mirandola (New York: Columbia University Press,
1936), 40.
46 Chapter 2

indicated by the letters ‫א מ ת‬, aleph men [sic] thau, i.e., truth.”6 If the idea of
‘truth’ as the seal of God and as the beginning, middle and end of the alphabet
and of creation was known to Pico, which it seems to have been, then the idea
of a divinely encompassing ordinality with Ma’aseh Bereshit as the center-point
and with Truth as the seal is entirely plausible. It is indeed not far-fetched to
postulate such a philosophically processionist reading of the rabbinic idea of
truth in the thought of Pico, and Chaim Wirszubski has noted the connection
in regard to this specific conclusion to Proclus’s three main concepts of pro-
cessio, reversio, and reunio.7 In extension, Moshe Idel has utilized Wirszubski’s
observation to tie this specific conclusion to Pico’s Oratio. Employing the met-
aphor of Jacob’s ladder, Pico there writes:

Once we, inspired by the cherubic spirit, have reached this point through
the art of speaking or of reasoning—that is, philosophizing according
to the grades of Nature, penetrating the whole from the centre to the
centre—then shall we descend, dashing the one into many with Titanic
force like Osiris, and ascend, drawing together with Phoebean might the
many into one, like Osiris’s limbs, until at last, resting in the bosom of
the Father who is at the top of the ladder, we shall be made perfect in
theological bliss.8

According to Idel’s understanding, the descent mentioned here is akin to the

reversio of Pico’s conclusion utilizing Proclus, the ascent is akin to the proces-
sio, and the rest in the bosom of the Father is akin to the reunio.9 If Idel’s read-
ing is correct, then perhaps there is more of a connection to the preceding
conclusion than meets the eye. Perhaps “the whole from the centre to the cen-
tre” attributed by Idel to al-Batalyawsi’s Imaginary Circles relates to the “truth,”
i.e., Emet, and perhaps the graded movement relates to the letters; the first

6  The Gate of Heaven: Flavius Mithridates’ Latin Translation, the Hebrew Text, and an English
Version, edited with introduction and notes by Susanne Jurgan and Saverio Campanini
with a text on Pico by Giulio Busi (Torino: Nino Aragno Editore, 2012), English section, 326.
The Latin section, on page 133, has: “Deinde signantur sigillo veritatis quod est principium
medium et finis indicatum per litteras ‫ א מ ת‬aleph men thau idest veritatis.”
7  Wirszubski, A Christian Kabbalist Reads the Law [Hebrew] (Jerusalem: Mossad Bialik,
1977), 17.
8  Giovanni Pico della Mirandola, Oration on the Dignity of Man, a new translation and commen-
tary, edited by Francesco Borghesi, Michael Papio and Massimo Riva (New York: Cambridge
University Press), 149. For a fuller explanation of the references to Osiris, see idem, fn. 78.
9  Idel, Ascensions on High in Jewish Mysticism: Pillars, Lines, Ladders (Budapest and New York:
Central European University Press), 186.
On the Wisdom of Christ 47

“centre” possibly relates to the mem of the reversio while the second “centre”
possibly relates to the bet in the center of Shabbat as the reunio.
What, then, would we make of the alef of the processio? Perhaps this is “the
art of speaking or reasoning—that is, philosophizing,” that sets off the entire
process. In this case it is the apotheotic microtheos that sets off a process of
descent and ascent, while in the case of God, it is the Father who sets off the
parallel process of emanated creation. Such a reading is supported by Pico’s
explanation of ascent and descent by an immediate turn to Empedocles’
theory of friendship and strife as “set in our souls: one of them lifts us upwards
to the heavens and the other drags us down into the depths.”10 This is a refer-
ence to Empedocles’ concept of cosmic cycles, which is a theory of creation
that, as we will later see, had an effect upon Pico’s and Isaac Abravanel’s mac-
rochronic theories, but that here is related to the individual soul.11 The relation
to the soul here is the precise support of my above reading; Pico here is explic-
itly employing a cosmic theory of creation to explain his ideas of individual
ascent and descent. This solidifies the microtheotic-macranthropic parallel
between the adept as descending from and ascending to peace, and God as
creating from Himself and then reversing His creation back into Himself. In
the one case as put forth in the Oration, it is human descent, ascent, and rest,
while in the other case as put forth in Pico’s Conclusiones, it is the divine Father,
the act of creation, and the cosmic Shabbat.
Another highly compelling reading of the passage from the Conclusiones
regarding the letter bet in relation to Proclus’s emanatory stages was put forth

10  Pico, Oration, 149.

11  For more on Empedocles’ cycles, see Aristotle, Metaphysics 985a–b. There he states
regarding Empedocles: “In many cases he makes friendship segregate things, and strife
aggregate them. For when the universe is dissolved into its elements by strife, fire is aggre-
gated into one, and so is each of the other elements; but when again under the influ-
ence of friendship they come together into one, the parts must again be segregated out
of each element.” He goes on: “Empedocles, then, in contrast with his predecessors, was
the first to introduce this cause in a divided form, not positing one source of movement,
but different and contrary sources. Again, he was the first to speak of four material ele-
ments; yet he does not use four, but treats them as two only; he treats fire by itself, and its
opposites—earth, air, and water—as one kind of thing.” [Translated by W.D. Ross, in The
Complete Works of Aristotle: The Revised Oxford Translation, edited by Jonathan Barnes,
volume two (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1984), 1558]. It is clear here, as well as
in Empedocles’ fragments, that he is relating to a cosmic system of creation and destruc-
tion, and not to a metaphor for the soul of the individual. Pico’s subtle shift is thus quite
significant for his understanding of the place of the human in relation to the cosmos.
48 Chapter 2

by Chaim Wirszubski and has been advocated by many scholars.12 According

to this analysis, the Hebrew alphabet does not have the letter mem as its center-
point, as is purported by the Midrash cited above. Rather, the center is the
letter nun. It is important to understand that in an alphabet of twenty-two
letters there is no central letter. Thus, for the above Midrash to work and for
mem to be in the middle, the extra five configurations of letters that take on
a final form, namely, kaf-sofit, mem-sofit, nun-sofit, peh-sofit, and tzade-sofit,
need to be counted, thereby making twenty-seven letters. When these are
positioned adjacent to their standard form counterparts, then standard form
mem indeed falls in the center. This would support the reading of mav rather
than bam when applied to Pico’s conclusion, thereby fitting with the proposed
acronym of Ma’aseh Bereshit. However, if these five final form letters are posi-
tioned at the end of the Hebrew alphabet and are not interspersed adjacent
to their standard form counterparts, then the letter nun falls the middle. Thus,
in a combinatory fashion, bet with the first letter alef creates Av, or “Father,”
bet with the middle letter nun creates Ben, or “Son,” and bet with the last
two letters creates Shabbat, or “Sabbath.”13 In this formulation, the Father
marks the beginning and source of creation, the Son marks the center of the
All, and the Sabbath marks the end in a state of repose and perfection. Here,
unlike the reading involving the Midrashic Emet, the Christological implica-
tions are clear; the Son is in the center of creation and acts as the node that ties
it all together. He is also the point of return to the Father that ends in reunion.
Though Wirszubski was the first to apply this reading to Pico’s Conclusiones,
he was not the first to reveal the conception of Av, Ben and Shabbat as lying
behind the idea of the conjunction of the letter bet with the first, middle and
last letters of the Hebrew alphabet. Indeed, as Wirszubski himself states,
this is explicitly discussed in Recanati’s commentary on Genesis, which was
a source known to Pico.14 Curiously, this attestation to Recanati only shows
up in Wirszubski’s Hebrew work and is not made known in his English book

12  Wirszubski, Pico della Mirandola’s Encounter with Jewish Mysticism (Jerusalem: The
Academy of Sciences and Humanities, 1989), 164–165; Wirszubski, “A Christian Kabbalist
Reads the Law,” 16–17; Idel, Ascensions on High, 186; Peter Forshaw, “The Genesis of
Christian Kabbalah: Early Modern Speculations on the Work of Creation,” in Hidden
Truths from Eden: Esoteric Readings of Genesis 1–3, edited by Caroline Vander Stichele and
Susanne Scholz (Atlanta: SBL Press, 2014), 131; Farmer, 545.
13  Ibid. Neither Wirszubski, nor Recanati who is his source, nor any of the scholars who rely
on Wirszubski’s analysis, accounts for the fact that according to such casuistic reason-
ing of adding the final form letters at the end in order to place nun and thus Ben in the
middle, would render the last word Pabatz rather than Shabbat.
14  Wirszubski, “A Christian Kabbalist Reads the Law,” 17–18.
On the Wisdom of Christ 49

on Pico, which may be the reason why subsequent scholars have readily cited
Wirszubski’s reading of this conclusion but have failed to note the source.
Recanati’s commentary reads as follows:

Since the letter bet alludes to Hokhmah, through which He made every-
thing, you will thus find this letter operating all things. For when it is con-
joined with the secret of alef, from which it is emanated, it is an Av, i.e.,
a “Father” for all the generations of those things that come into existence
from its emanation by way of its nursing from the alef, which is an allu-
sion to Keter Elyon. And when if flows forth onto the letter nun, which is
in the middle of the alphabet, a son is born from its conjunction there.
And when it enters between kuf and resh, then it is a kever, i.e., a “grave,”
and it enters there to relinquish the soul from its body and to seek rest
for it, and to bring it into the palace of the King. It further operates and
enters between the two last letters in order to arrive at the supernal light,
the rest of the souls, and then it is Shabbat. Then it stands still from giv-
ing birth and from operating, for this is the secret of the Great Jubilee,
and there it is a pleasure for the souls to gaze upon the pleasantness of
the Lord.15

Here the idea of nun as “the middle of the alphabet” is explicitly stated, as are
the formations of Av, Ben, and Shabbat. Interestingly, an additional combina-
tion appears here that does not appear in Pico’s formulation, namely kever, or
“grave.” Recanati seems to be alluding to the idea that just as the kuf and resh
are the penultimate letters of the Hebrew alphabet, so too is the grave only the
second to last stop for the soul on its way to eternal rest in Shabbat. If Recanati
is Pico’s source, then it is not entirely clear why Pico omitted this. Perhaps
the omission has to do with the more cosmic, rather than psychological appeal
of his conclusion. Whatever the case may be, the final Shabbat as “the secret of
the Great Jubilee” returns to cosmic proportions, and as we will see in chapter

15  Recanati, Commentary on the Torah (Tel Aviv: Amnon Gross, 2003), 2; Wirszubski,
“A Christian Kabbalist Reads the Law,” 17–18: ‫ובעבור כי אות בי"ת רומזת לחכמה אשר בה‬
‫ כי בהתחברה בסוד א' שמשם‬.‫עשה הכל על כן תמצא האות הזאת פועלת הדברים כולם‬
‫אצילותה היא אב לכל התולדות המתהוים מאצילותה ביניקותה מן הא' הרומז לכתר עליון‬
‫ובהשפיעה לאות נו"ן שהיא באמצע האלפא ביתא יולדת בן בהתחברה שם ובהכנסה בין ק"ר‬
‫אז היא קבר ונכנסה שם להשליל הנשמה מגופה ולבקש לה מנוח להכניסה בהיכל מלך ועוד‬
‫פועלת ונכנסת בין שתי אותיות האחרונות להגיע לאור העליון מנוחת הנפשות ואז היא שב"ת‬
.'‫ואזי עמדה מלדת ומלפעול כי היא סוד היובל הגדול ושם תענוג הנשמות לחזות בנועם ה‬
50 Chapter 2

six, it is picked up by Pico and utilized in the formulation of his own cosmic
theories related to a return to the All in felicitous repentance.
It is important to note that in the above passage, Recanati is conflating let-
ter mysticism with sefirotic theosophy. Bet as the second letter of the Hebrew
alphabet alludes to Hokhmah as the second Sefirah, while alef as the first letter
is an allusion to the first Sefirah, Keter Elyon. Recanati’s conflation matches
well with Pico’s own conflation of language mysticism with theosophical-
theurgical Kabbalah in his discussions of the sonship of God.16 Moreover, in
Recanati’s passage, the conjunction of alef with bet in that specific order not
only forms the word Av, it also reflects the order of the emanation of the Sefirot
and the idea that Hokhmah is second in order and suckles an influx from Keter
Elyon before it can provide an efflux into creation. This matches Pico’s order,
as framed by Proclus. Finally, context here is important, and it should be noted
that the entire passage is discussing the bet of Bereshit, the first letter of the
first word of the Torah, “through which,” as Recanati states, “He made every-
thing.” A subtle play on the idea of Reshit as Hokhmah seems to be employed
here, with the bet as the true beginning of that Hokhmah, which is continu-
ously operative as a beginning throughout and beyond creation. This relates to
Pico’s ideal of Christ as the second hypostasis, activated through the Father but
present and operative throughout creation, and beyond, as the beginning that
actualizes the Source and completes creation.
The hypostatic nature of Christ as Hokhmah for Pico is perhaps best exem-
plified by one of his conclusions that directly stems from, and comments
upon, the original conclusion discussed above, concerning “the fourfold state
of things” and the letter bet. In continuation, Pico writes: “Through the same
conclusion one can know that the same Son, who is the Wisdom of the Father,
is he who unites all things in the Father, and through whom all things were
made, and by whom all things are converted, and in whom at last all things
sabbatize.”17 Pico seems to be saying here that the bet as a symbol of the sec-
ond hypostasis, stemming from the alef as a symbol of the first, represents
both the Son from the Father and Hokhmah from Keter. Read in consideration
of “Truth,” or Emet as the beginning, middle and end, Pico seems to be say-
ing that the Son, or Hokhmah as infused in Truth “is he who unites all things
in the Father” through the creation of Av. For Pico, that Son who is Hokhmah

16  For more on this, see Moshe Idel, Ben: Sonship and Jewish Mysticism, 507–514, and more
recently, idem, “The Kabbalistic Backgrounds of the ‘Son of God’ in Giovanni Pico della
Mirandola’s Thought,” in Giovanni Pico e la cabbalà, a cura di Fabrizio Lelli (Firenze:
Olschki, 2014): 19–45.
17  Farmer, 547.
On the Wisdom of Christ 51

is the one “through whom all things were made” through the creation of Mav,
or Ma’aseh Bereshit. Finally, for Pico, that Son/Hokhmah is the one “in whom
at last all things sabbatize” through the creation of Shabbat. The idea that he
is the one “by whom all things are converted” does not seem to have a direct
parallel in the prior conclusion, and may relate to bet, or the Son as Hokhmah,
functioning as the factor that not only unifies Truth, but that also converts it
from actuality into potentiality by way of its very infusion in Truth.
Taken in light of Wirszubski’s Recanatian reading, the “Son,” i.e., the Ben
formed by the bet and nun is the “Wisdom” of the Father. In other words, it is
Hokhmah, the second hypostasis stemming from the first hypostatic “Father,”
i.e., the Av formed by the alef and bet, which is Keter Elyon. Hokhmah unites
everything in Keter, and also acts as the beginning of creation. It also converts
everything.18 Finally, through it, all things come to rest in the Shabbat formed
by the bet and the last two letters shin and tav, which is the “Great Jubilee,”
i.e., the sefirah of Binah. Hence, according to this reading, we have a dual pro-
cess of hypostatic conflation: First, the trinity of Av, Ben and Shabbat is united
through the common letter bet, which represents the second hypostasis, which
is conceived of here as the “Son, who is the Wisdom of the Father.” Second,
Av, Ben and Shabbat represent the sefirot of Keter, Hokhmah and Binah, which
are united through the middle element Hokhmah, i.e., “Wisdom.” This second
hypostasis, then, isomorphically conflating the Son and Hokhmah through a
notion of the Wisdom of the Father, ties together the beginning and the end,
and as the middle, it becomes one with the two extremes in an indistinguish-
able loop.
Whether read through the Midrashic idea of Truth or through the Recanatian
concept of the Son, Pico’s ultimate idea here seems to be one of hypostatic
conflation. Moreover, it seems to be precisely because of such conflation that
he makes the following assertion: “Following their own principles, the Cabalists
must necessarily concede that the true Messiah will be such that of him it is
truly said that he is God and the Son of God.”19 For Pico, the Messiah is the
hypostatic element stemming from God but also manifesting God. He redeems
through the Sabbath, he converts all things, he acts as the beginning of cre-
ation, and he leads to the Father. According to this, in Pico’s mind, Kabbalists
should readily recognize this messianic element as Hokhmah. This hyposta-
sis brings all to rest in Shabbat, which is possibly read as Binah, and which
converts the potential to the first stage of the actual. In doing so, it activates
Ma’aseh Bereshit, and it ultimately leads one who take refuge in it back to Keter.

18  Here again, the parallel to both the prior conclusion and to Recanati’s passage is not clear.
19  Farmer, 533.
52 Chapter 2

Pico continues with this line of thought, bringing it very starkly into the
realm of Christology. “It follows,” he states in relation to the above conclusion
concerning the Messiah as God and the Son of God, “that every Cabalist has
to concede that Jesus, when asked who he was, responded very rightly, say-
ing, I am the beginning who speaks to you.”20 This last quotation is a reference
to John 8:25, and here the rendering of the Vulgate, which casts the beginning
as principium in the nominative case, plays very well into Pico’s reading. This
is further echoed in the Heptaplus, where Pico writes: “He is the beginning
in whom God created heaven and earth, the Christ.”21 Here, too, he goes on
to repeat the quote from John 8:25: “I am the beginning who speaks to you.”22
For Pico, the beginning in both the conclusion and the Heptaplus refers to Reshit,
which, as we have seen in light of Psalm 111:10, is a classical kabbalistic epithet
for Hokhmah. Such a reading is buttressed by another conclusion according to
“the Hebrew Cabalist Wisemen,” in which Pico states that “Bereshit, that is, in
the beginning he created, is the same as if he had said, he created in wisdom.”23
According to analogical inference, then, Jesus as the beginning is Wisdom, or
Hokhmah, through whom God created.
But what of Pico’s quotation from John 8:25, in which Jesus states: “I am the
beginning who speaks to you”? Why does Pico feel the need to invoke this spe-
cific quote with this additional adjective clause, not once, but twice? What does
the beginning have to do with speech? One classical reading of the Vulgate’s
rendering, which may play into Pico’s theory, holds that the beginning refers to
Jesus’ divine nature in conjunction with the Father, while the additional clause
who speaks to you refers to Jesus’ human nature under the personality of the
divine Word made flesh.24 The first part is unknowable to human comprehen-
sion, while the second part reveals the otherwise unknowable heavenly truths
through the process of speech. Jesus as both divine and as human mediates
between the two realms, as does Hokhmah for Pico, which is the beginning of
divine Wisdom that spills over into human intelligence.
This reading, which may have stood in the background of Pico’s appeal to
the Vulgate’s version of John 8:25, certainly calls to mind Alemanno’s theory of
speech. In fact, basing himself on the very same source as Alemanno, the Liber
de Causis, Pico elsewhere asserts: “When Abucaten said that the first cause is
superior to all speech, this is not true so much because of what he affirms first,

20  Farmer, 537.

21  Heptaplus, 105.
22  Ibid.
23  Farmer, 357.
24  John MacEvilly, An Exposition of the Gospel of St. John (Dublin: M.H. Gill and Son,
1889), 175.
On the Wisdom of Christ 53

namely since it has no cause before itself, but because of what he suggests
second, because it is unially antecedent to everything intelligible.”25 In Pico’s
case, Keter as the first cause is beyond all speech, while Hokhmah is the begin-
ning of speech. Keter as the Av, as we have seen, is an activation of the first
cause, but only by way of its conjunction with the speech of Hokhmah, which
it still remains beyond.
As we have seen with Alemanno, speech sometimes acts as a philosophical
metaphor for emanation, representing the intellect as internal speech on one
level, and representing the processes of creation as externalized divine speech
on another level. Although this metaphor is more highly developed in the
thought of Alemanno, there seems to be a glimpse of it, as based upon Liber
de Causis, in Pico’s thought as well. Indeed, his juxtaposition in the Heptaplus
of “the beginning in whom God created heaven and earth” with John’s “begin-
ning who speaks” seems to be no coincidence. Through the dual concepts of
creation and speech, Pico is relating the beginning to that which is knowable
to the human mind. This is similar to the idea of Hokhmah as latent speech
made manifest in Binah and then beyond, as espoused by the likes of Recanati
and the Zohar, but as fully developed and drawn out by Alemanno. For Pico,
however, unlike for Recanati, for the Zohar, or for Alemanno, it is Christ who is
the ultimate beginning that is isomorphically synonymous with the kabbalis-
tic hypostasis of the unspoken speech of Hokhmah. From that point, for Pico,
Christ breaks forth from the apophatic realm and actively speaks to humanity,
and to all of creation.
Notwithstanding the Proclean background and the possible link to Liber de
Causis, Pico is extremely careful to distinguish between the Platonic concept
that the spoken word, whether cast as “the Son of God,” “Wisdom,” “Mind,” or
“Divine Reason,” is the first created entity, and the Christological idea that it is
the second person of the Creator.26 In his Commento he writes:

25  Farmer, 463. The identity of Abucaten remains a mystery, though in private conversa-
tion, Brian Copenhaver has confirmed that most references to him by Pico, including this
one, hearken back to the standard Latin version of Liber de Causis. As Moshe Idel has
noted (“The Magical and Neoplatonic Interpretations of the Kabbalah,” 163 fn. 175), Pico’s
Heptaplus seems to contain a reference to Liber de Causis (relating to a different context
than the one being discussed here) that differs from the Latin translation that he had
at hand. One conjecture, which I have discussed with Idel but that remains to be fully
proven, is that Pico was taking from a Hebrew source, and perhaps even from Alemanno.
26 Not surprisingly, this is in line with Magid’s keen observation that in incarnational thin­
king, “creation is the moment at which God, creating Adam, first transfers God’s essence
to the world” (Hasidism Incarnate, 20).
54 Chapter 2

The Platonists and the ancient philosophers Hermes Trismegistus and

Zoroaster call this first creature sometimes “son of God,” sometimes
“Wisdom,” sometimes “Mind,” and sometimes “Divine Reason,” which
some even interpret as “the word.” But everyone should be careful not
to suppose that this “word” is the same “Word” that our theologians call
“the son of God.” For what we mean by “the Son” is of one and the same
essence as the Father, is equal to Him in everything, and, lastly, is a crea­
tor and not a creature; whereas what the Platonists call “the son of God”
must be identified with the first and noblest angel created by God.27

Moshe Idel has perceptively pointed out that here, Pico is opposing the prisca
theologia tradition espoused by the likes of Ficino, which equates Jesus with
the concept of the Son in Hermetic and Zoroastrian sources, and which sees
him as a high, created angel.28 What is interesting for our purposes is what
is not stated here. Even though Pico mentions “Wisdom,” “Mind,” and “the
word,” it is in the context of Hermes Trismigestus and Zoroaster; the kabbalis-
tic tradition of Hokhmah is not brought into question. This is perhaps because
he sees it as hypostatically synonymous with Jesus as “a creator and not a
creature,” as of the essence of the Father, and as the Word that expresses that
essence but does not become separate from it.
Whether Pico’s silence regarding the spoken word of Hokhmah in rela-
tion to Jesus was deliberate is impossible to say. What is possible to say is that
like Alemanno’s distinction between the unsaid saying and said sayings, Pico
draws the distinction between created entities and their previously existing
Ideal counterparts. Later in his Commento, he writes regarding the poem of his
friend Girolamo Benivieni:

Our author also wanted to give the epithet living to the Ideas, in order to
follow John the Evangelist, who said, And all created things in Him were
life (John 1:4), meaning that whatever was created by God existed previ-
ously within Him in its Ideal being. The secret mysteries of the Cabalists

27  Pico, Commentary on a Canzone, 81; Commento sopra una canzone, 13–14: Questa prima
mente create, da Platone, e così dalli antichi philosophi, Mercurio Trimegisto, e Zoroastre,
è chiamato hora figliuolo de Dio, hora mente, hora Sapientia, hora ragione divina, il che
anchora interpretano alchuni, verbo. Et habbi ciascuno diligente advertentia di non cre-
dere che questo sia quello che da’ nostri Theologi è ditto figliuolo di Dio, imperoché noi
intendiamo per il figliuolo di Dio una medesima essentia col padre a lui in ogni cosa
equale, creatore finalmente e non creatura, ma debbesi comparare quello che Platonici
chiamano figliuolo di Dio, al primo e più nobile angelo da Dio prodotto.
28  Idel, Ben: Sonship in Jewish Mysticism, 508–510, and again later in idem, “The Kabbalistic
Backgrounds of the ‘Son of God’,” 35–36.
On the Wisdom of Christ 55

agree with this; they attribute the name life to the second sephirot [sic],
or numeration, which proceeds from the First Father and is in itself the
first ideal Wisdom.29

Just as for Alemanno the said sayings have precedent in the unsaid saying that
is Hokhmah, for Pico created things have precedent in living Ideas, which are
contained within Hokhmah, the very first of these Ideas. In fact, ‘life’ is the
name given to Hokhmah here, and just like Jesus, it “proceeds from the First
Father.” It itself is not created, but through it, everything is created. For this
reason, it is called ‘life,’ as it gives life to existence and is thus the true begin-
ning of all of existence.
Pico’s kabbalistic source here is not entirely clear. Indeed, the epithet ‘life’
for the sefirah Hokhmah is not too common, and it is not explicitly discussed
in sefirotic sources that were well known to Pico, such as Joseph Gikatilla’s
Sha’arei ‘Orah or Recanati’s Commentary on the Bible. One possible source is
Sha’ar ha-Shamayim, which, as I have mentioned, was translated for Pico by
Mithridates, and which refers to Hokhmah in relation to life. But there the epi-
thet used for Hokhmah is Eretz ha-Hayyim, i.e., “the Land of the Living,” which
is translated quite literally by Mithridates as “terra vivorum,” with terra, i.e.,
“land” as the nominative.30 A more pertinent parallel to Pico’s case seems to
come in Tikkunei ha-Zohar, which, in discussing “The Tree of Life,” or Etz ha-
Hayyim, writes:

Ha-Hayyim, i.e., “The Life” refers to Father and Mother, which are yod heh.
Yod is Hokhmah. From where do we derive that it is called “Life”? This is
as it is said: Wisdom gives life to one who has it (Ecclesiastes 7:12). Heh is in
regard to the supernal Mother. From where do we derive that She is called
“Life”? This is as it is said: She is a Tree of Life (Proverbs 3:11), undoubtedly.
And both of them are “Life” for all that issues forth from them.31

29  
Commentary on a Canzone, 143; Commento sopra una canzone, 103–104: Volse oltra ad
questo lo auttore nostro dare lo epiteto della vita alle idee per sequire Giovanni evange-
lista, il quale volendo significare ciò che da Dio fu creato essere prima stato in lui secondo
lo essere ideale disse, e tutte le cose fatte in lui, erano vita. Accordansi anchora a questo e’
sacri mysterii delli hebrei, li quali alla seconda Sephirot, cioè enumeration che dal primo
padre procede et è in sé la prima ideale sapientia, attribuiscono il nome di vita.
30  
Gate of Heaven, Hebrew section, 59, Latin section, 131.
Tikkunei ha-Zohar, 76b: ‫ ומנא לן דאתקרי‬.‫ י' איהו חכמה‬.‫החיים אינון אבא ואימא דאינון י"ה‬
31  
‫ כמה‬,‫ מנא לן דאתקרי חיים‬.‫ ה' בה אימא עלאה‬.‫ כמה דאת אמר החכמה תחיה בעליה‬,‫חיים‬
.‫ ותרויהו כי חיים הם למוצאיהם‬.‫דאת אמר עץ חיים היא ודאי‬
56 Chapter 2

Here, in contradistinction to Pico, the supernal Father is Hokhmah rather than

Keter, and rather than being conjoined with the Son, it is conjoined with the
supernal Mother, which is Binah. Both of these conjoin to form the very name
of God, Yah. Similar to Pico, the whole structure is divine life because it gives
life. In the case of Pico, this given life is to the created entities that are cre-
ated from the blueprint of the Ideal Forms that preexist in God. In the case of
Tikkunei ha-Zohar, the life given is to all that emanates from the conjunction
of the supernal Father and the supernal Mother, which not only spell out the
name of God, but parallel the Torah as “The Tree of Life.” Like Pico’s Ideals in
Jesus, they also act as the blueprints and the beginning points for all of creation.
In another connection between the beginning points of creation, Kabbalah,
and the Platonic ideas as subsumed within Wisdom, Pico states in his
Conclusiones: “Because Onkelos the Chaldean said becadmin, that is, with eter-
nal or through eternal things, he showed that he understood the thirty-two
paths of wisdom.”32 He goes on to qualify this, later writing: “It will be more
correct to explain that Becadmin, which the Chaldean gloss places over the
word Bereshit, as concerning the sapiential ideas than the thirty-two paths, as
other Cabalists say. Both, however, are correct in the Cabala.”33 According to
the plural form of the Aramaic becadmin, Pico surmises a kabbalistic under-
standing of a plurality of beginnings moored in wisdom. Though it would
not be incorrect to identify these with the twenty-two letters of the Hebrew
alphabet and the ten sefirot, for Pico, it is more correct to identify them with
the Platonic Ideas. It is important to note that for Pico, in both cases, these
beginnings are explicitly tied to Wisdom. Thus, whether they are the thirty-two
paths or whether they are the Platonic Ideas, the eternal, uncreated beginnings
of creation are fundamentally connected to Hokhmah; or isomorphically for
Pico, they are essentially and necessarily associated with Jesus Christ as the
eternal, uncreated Son.
In a final Christological kabbalistic move toward the beginning, Pico dis-
cusses the term Bereshit, not at the beginning, but at the end of his Heptaplus:
indeed, seemingly paradoxically, it is with the beginning that he concludes his
commentary on Genesis. But the beginning here is tied to the end in an uro-
boric fashion, and as Crofton Black has pointed out, the final chapter is a new
beginning and it is not a mere continuation of what has come before.34 I would
argue that the placement is thus deliberately poetic; the end as a beginning
seals the work into an infinite cycle, but it also opens it up into something new
that is commencing. In regard to newness, it is important to point out that

32  Farmer, 357.

33  Farmer, 545.
34  Black, Pico’s Heptaplus, 214.
On the Wisdom of Christ 57

Pico’s discussion does not hinge on his previous hypostatic identification of

Jesus and Hokhmah; or as Pico himself puts it in a somewhat veiled manner:
“I am not here going to discuss the Son of God, who is the beginning through
which all things were made (for he is the wisdom of the Father).”35 Rather than
the isomorphic equation between Reshit, Hokhmah, and Jesus as the Son of
God, Pico here is interested in utilizing a form of ars combinandi that is simi-
lar to Alemanno’s combinatory method. Unlike Alemanno, however, Pico is
interested in finding a Christological reading of Bereshit as the beginning, and
ultimately the end of creation.
To this end, Pico variously mutates the six Hebrew letters of the word
Bereshit and comes up with twelve words: Av, which he translates as “pater”
(Father); bebar, which he translates as “in filio/per filium” (in the Son/through
the Son); reshit, which he translates as “principium” (beginning); Shabbat,
which he translates as “quies et finis” (rest and end); bara, which he translates
as “creavit” (he created); rosh, which he translates as “caput” (head); esh, which
he translates as “ignis” (fire); shet, which he translates as “fundamentum” (foun-
dation); rav, which he translates as “magni” (great); ish, which he translates as
“hominis” (man); brit, which he translates as “foedere” (pact); and finally tov,
which he translates as “bono” (good).36 Strung together, these twelve words
read: “The Father, in the Son and through the Son, the beginning and end
or rest, created the head, the fire and the foundation of the great man with
a good pact.”37
It is of significance that the Father, the Son and Shabbat (translated here
as “end or rest”) are common elements between this sentence and the previ-
ously discussed conclusion hinging on the letter bet. The specifics of the com-
monality may signal a connection between the two.38 Indeed, in both cases,
the t­ otality of existence seems to be tied up in the beginning. In the previous
case, that beginning is in the very first letter of the Torah, while in this case,

35  Ibid., 170.

36  Pico mistakenly claims that the Hebrew letters tav and tet are interchangeable, and that
thus tov with a tav can signify “good.” For more on Pico’s letter mutation here, see Black,
Pico’s Heptaplus, 214–221. For more on its subsequent usage by Sixtus of Sienna, see idem,
“Eucherius of Lyon, Giovanni Pico della Mirandola and Sixtus of Siena: Early Christian
Exegesis and Kabbalah in the Bibliotheca Sancta (1566),” in Giovanni Pico e la cabbalà,
243–244.
37  Heptaplus, 172.
38  Both Wirszubski (Pico’s Encounter, 220–221) and Black (Pico’s Heptaplus, 216–218) have
noted that Pico’s source here seems to be either Liber combinationum or Recanati, and
they have cited the same passages that seem to be at the heart of Pico’s previously dis-
cussed conclusion. Notwithstanding, there seems to be a greater connection at work here
than a mere usage of the same passages for two different works.
58 Chapter 2

it is in the very first word, which itself signifies “beginning.” In the previous
case, Proclus’s emanatory orders of processio, reversio, and reunio are drawn
out through Av, Ben and Shabbat, while here, “the head, the fire and the foun-
dation” may serve a similar purpose. Though Pico explicitly links these to the
intellectual, the heavenly and the corruptible worlds,39 there may be another
layer at play in which these three worlds themselves are linked to emanation.
Indeed, rosh, or “head” is a common epithet for a starting point from which all
proceeds, esh, or “fire” may refer to the Holy Spirit that ties the macrocosmic
“great man” of creation back to its source,40 while shet, “foundation,” is all gen-
erable and corruptible matter that ultimately reunites with its source through
a brit tovah, a “good pact.”
An important kabbalistic subtlety seems to be at work here. Comparing the
macrocosmic schema to man, Pico explicitly states regarding the “foundation”
that is generable and corruptible but that reunites through a brit: “In the low-
est part are the genitals, the principle of generation.”41 A well-known trope
in kabbalistic literature equates Yesod, the “Foundation,” which is the penul-
timate sefirah, with the divine phallus. It is through the coronation process of
the brit milah that this phallus gets exposed, and by which it unites, in a sexual
manner, with its female counterpart, thereby uniting humanity and the earthly
realm to the godhead.42 It is perhaps this coronation process that Pico has in
mind when he writes of “the head, the fire and the foundation of the great

39  Heptaplus, 173–174.

40  This reading is supported by Pico’s conclusion that states: “No Hebrew Cabalist can deny
that the name Jesus, if we interpret it following the method and principles of the Cabala,
signifies precisely all this and nothing else, that is: God the Son of God and the Wisdom of
the Father, united to human nature in the unity of assumption through the third Person
of God, who is the most ardent fire of love” (Farmer, 523).
41  Heptaplus, 173.
42  For more, see the many detailed expositions of this trope by Elliot Wolfson; in particular,
see his Language, Eros, Being: Kabbalistic Hermeneutics and Poetic Imagination (New York:
Fordham University Press, 2005), 128–141; idem, Luminal Darkness: Imaginal Gleanings
from Zoharic Literature (Oxford: Oneworld Publications, 2007), 144–184; “Circumcision,
Vision of God, and Textual Interpretation: From Midrashic Trope to Mystical Symbol,”
History of Religions 27 (1987): 189–215; idem, “Circumcision and the Divine Name: A Study
in the Transmission of Esoteric Doctrine,” Jewish Quarterly Review 78 (1987): 77–112; idem,
“The Cut that Binds: Time, Memory and the Ascetic Impulse,” in God’s Voice From the
Void: Old and New Studies in Bratslav Hasidism, ed. Shaul Magid (Albany: SUNY Press,
2002): 103–154; idem, “Circumcision, Secrecy, and the Veiling of the Veil: Phallomorphic
Exposure and Kabbalistic Esotericism,” in The Covenant of Circumcision: New Perspectives
on an Ancient Jewish Rite, edited by E.W. Mark (Hanover and London: Brandeis University
Press, 2003), 58–70.
On the Wisdom of Christ 59

man” that are united by way of a brit tovah, “a good pact.” Indeed, for Pico, “this
pact is good . . . because it is directed and oriented toward God, who is the good
itself, so that just as within itself the whole world is one, so also it is, in the end,
one with its Maker.”43 This seems to relate to the first dimension of “unity and
stability” recounted in the previous conclusion regarding the letter bet. In that
previous conclusion, the Son as penetrating existence and infused through
beginning, middle and end ties the entirety of existence together, while here,
the Son is explicitly equated with both “the beginning and end.” It is in this
vein that Pico assures the reader of the Heptaplus that it is not without reason
that he has chosen to treat the beginning at the end. “Neither rashly,” he writes,
“nor without reason have I chosen to speak of this beginning at the end of the
whole work.”44 For Pico, the rationality of his poetic structure is embedded in
the fact that procession and reversion ultimately unite through the medium
of the foundation, which itself is the righteous extension of Christ.

43   Heptaplus, 174.

44  Heptaplus, 170.
 Chapter 3

On the Wisdom of Angels—Isaac Abravanel

on the Separate Intellects, Bodies, and the
Garments of Creation

Similar to both Alemanno and to Pico, Isaac Abravanel alludes to the common
kabbalistic isomorphism, based on Psalm 111:10, between Reshit as the begin-
ning and Hokhmah as the hypostasis of creation. The first word of the Torah is
thus yet again theosophically cast. Yet unlike Alemanno, Abravanel’s focus
is not upon the intellectual beginning or upon the material cause, and it does
not take on an Aristotelian flavor. And unlike Pico, the isomorphism does not
lead Abravanel to equate Christ with divine Wisdom and with the beginning
of existence. Rather, for Abravanel, the focus is quite different. In his case, the
invocation of the kabbalistic isomorphism is for the sole purpose of explaining
the creation of the angels, and unlike either Alemanno or Pico, the hypostatic
notion of the beginning is only secondary. Notwithstanding, For Abravanel too,
the question of the beginning does come to the fore.
For the purposes of expositing Reshit as Hokhmah, Abravanel quotes
one of his main kabbalistic authorities, the thirteenth century Spanish exe-
gete Nahmanides. Explicitly emphasizing the latter’s kabbalistic expertise,
Abravanel writes: “Nahmanides wrote in the manner of the kabbalists,” going
on to quote him at length:

If you should seek [to know] about the creation of the angels, which are
not a body, this is not laid out in the Torah, and [the Rabbis] interpreted
that they were created on the second day, so that you cannot say that they
helped with the creation of the world.1 But if you merit to understand the
secret of Bereshit, and why the Torah did not preface this, saying ‘God cre-
ated in the beginning’ (Elohim bara’ bereshit), then you will know that by
way of truth the Scripture tells about lower things while hinting at upper
things. And the word Bereshit hints at Hokhmah, and thus the Targum
Yerushalmi translates it as B’Hukhmta, and the word is crowned with the
crown (Keter) of Bet.2

1  Bereshit Rabbah 1:3 and 3:8.

2  Abravanel, Mif’alot Elohim, 58, and again in shorter form in his Commentary on Genesis
(Jerusalem: Horev, 2006), 5, citing Nahmanides on Genesis 1:1: ‫מדרכי המקובלים כתב‬
‫הרמב"ן וז"ל ואם תבקש בריאה למלאכים שאינם גוף לא נתפרש זה בתורה ודרשו שנבראו‬

© koninklijke brill nv, leiden, ���6 | doi ��.��63/9789004330634_005

On the Wisdom of Angels 61

For Nahmanides, “the secret of Bereshit” has to do with the word order of the
Torah, which from its very beginning in Bereshit is explicitly telling about
worldly creation but is more subtly hinting at the supernal realm. Herein we
have a return to the dialectics of speech as espoused by Alemanno, and to
a lesser degree by Pico; but at this specific point in his discourse, Abravanel
does not take the discussion in that direction. Rather, in his Mif’alot Elohim,
he first takes it to the realm of medieval Aristotelian metaphysics, warning:
“You should not think that the Rabbi [i.e., Nahmanides] intended to interpret
Bereshit in regard to the Separate Intellects, as people have thought from his
words, for they thought that the sefirot are the Separate Intellects, and this is
a mistake that is explained by the law of Kabbalah.”3 This admonishment
is quite surprising, because a little later in this very same treatise, Abravanel
himself blatantly compares the sefirot to the Separate Intellects. There he writes:

The kabbalists said that the holy sefirot are not created but are emanated
from Him, may He be blessed, and that they unify in Him. And with all of
this, nobody would say that one of the sefirot would be the First Cause,
but that they are unified in Him, may He be blessed, and He in them;
they are not another thing or another essence. And the wise and accom-
plished Abubacher ben Tufayl already wrote in his epistle Hay ben Yaktan
that there is no plurality and no unity and no number and no distinction
in the Separate Intellects.4

This seems to be a reference to Ibn Tufayl’s lengthy discussion of unity and

plurality, and his statement in Hay ben Yaktan that “there is multiplicity only
when there is otherness and unity only where there is contact. Both of these,”

‫ביום השני שלא תאמר שסייעו בבריאת העולם אבל אם תזכה ותבין סוד בראשית ולמה לא‬
‫הקדים לומר אלקים ברא בראשית תדע כי ע"ד האמת הכתוב יגיד בתחתונים וירמוז בעליונים‬
.‫ומלת בראשית תרמוז בחכמה ולכן תרגם הירושלמי בחכמתא והמלה מוכתרת בכתר בית ע"כ‬
3  Mif’alot, 58: ‫ולא תחשוב שכיון הרב לפרש בראשית על השכלים הנבדלים כמו שחשבו אנשים‬
.‫מדבריו כי אלה חשבו שהספירות הם השכלים הנבדלים והוא טעות מבואר בחק הקבלה‬
For an extensive treatment of one of Abravanel’s contemporaries who treats the sefirot in
relation to the Separate Intellects, albeit in a much more complex manner than mere univoc-
ity, and not necessarily under the influence of Nahmanides, see: Ogren, “Sefirotic Depiction.”
4  Mif’alot, 174: ‫אמרו המקובלים שהספירות הקדושות אינן ברואות אבל נאצלות ממנו ית' ושהן‬
‫מתאחדות בו ולא יאמרו עם כל זה שאחת מהספירות תהיה הסבה הראשונה אלא בשהן מתאא‬
‫ וכבר כתב החכם המשיג אבובכר בן‬.‫חדות בו יתברך והוא בהן אינם דבר אחר ומהות אחר‬
.‫טופי"ל באגרתו של חי בן יקטן שאין בשכלי הנבדלים לא רבוי ולא אחדות ולא מספר ולא הבדל‬
For a fuller treatment of this passage, discussing possible influences of Alemanno upon
Abravanel, see Brian Ogren, Renaissance and Rebirth: Reincarnation in Early Modern Italian
Kabbalah (Leiden and Boston: Brill, 2009), 117–118.
62 Chapter 3

Ibn Tufayl states, “make sense only for things that are compounded—and
­confounded—in matter.”5 For Abravanel, who was most probably taking his
cue from Moses Narboni, the sefirot and the Separate Intellects are beyond
matter, and thus, in line with the Platonic theory of Ibn Tufayl, they are beyond
both multiplicity and unity.
But how can Abravanel conflate the sefirot and the Separate Intellects when
he has already explicitly stated that it is a mistake to think that the sefirot are
the Separate Intellects? Perhaps Seymour Feldman is correct in pointing out
that Abravanel variously associates the sefirot with Aristotle’s ten categories,
with the Separate Intellects, and with Plato’s Forms, and that “the very variety of
these characterizations of the Sefirot shows that he had no consistent account
of this Qabbalist theory.”6 Negation and then assertion, in the very same trea-
tise, would only buttress such an argument of inconsistency. Or perhaps in the
latter case, Abravanel is comparing, but not equating the two.7 His discussion
there indeed revolves around immaterial elements, such as souls and intel-
lects, and their status when connected with matter in contradistinction to their
status when departed from matter. Perhaps, then, Abravanel is holding up the
sefirot and the Separate Intellects as two separate sets of ten immaterial entities
related to Ibn Tufayl’s theory of compoundedness—and confoundedness—in
matter. When taken as separate from matter, both the sefirot and the Separate
Intellects, in Abravanel’s words, “do not have complete multiplicity nor com-
plete unity, since in their being gathered into their Source, their essences are not
one thing with the First Cause, for He always was, is and will be simply One in
His essence, separate from and different than everything other than Himself.”8
It is not that the sefirot and the Separate Intellects are identical; it is that they
are the same in their mutual difference from both matter and from the One.
Whatever the case may be for the discrepancy, in the first instance that
negates a connection between the sefirot and the Separate Intellects, Abravanel
rightly recognizes that Nahmanides’ hint at the supernal realm is of a divinely
hypostatic nature. He notes that it is not the realm of the intellects being refer-
enced by Nahmanides, but something above the intellects that actually creates

5  Abu Bakr Ibn Tufayl, Hayy ibn Yaqzan: A Philosophical Tale, translated by Lenn Goodman
(Chicago and London: University of Chicago Press, 2003), 151.
6  Feldman, Philosophy in a Time of Crisis, 156.
7  Compare to Isaac Abravanel, Nahalat Avot (New York: Zilberman, 1953), 147: ‫הגבול והשלמות‬
‫הוא במספר העשיריות להיותם כנגד עשר ספירות וכנגד השכלים הנבדלים הנכללים בעשרה‬
.‫ולכן היה שנברא העולם בעשרה מאמרות‬
8  Mif’alot, 174–175: ‫אין בהם לא רבוי גמור ולא אחדות גמור (!) לפי שבאסיפתם אל מקורם אינם‬
‫הם עצמם דבר אחד עם הסבה הראשונה כי הוא תמיד היה והוה ויהיה אחד פשוט במהותו נבדל‬
.‫ונפרד מכל זולתו‬
On the Wisdom of Angels 63

them as angels. In this regard, Abravanel understands Nahmanides as claiming

that the first verse of the Torah, Bereshit bara Elohim et ha-shamayim v’et ha-
aretz should read: “Through the medium of Hokhmah, which is the beginning
(Reshit), He created Elohim, the heavens and the earth.”9 For Nahmanides, the
pronoun “He” referenced here points to the unnamed God implied in the verb
bara, i.e., “He created,” while Elohim refers not to God as the subject but to the
angels as an object. Abravanel writes that if this is so, then the three created
entities of angels, the heavens, and the earth “are the three parts of existence:
the intellectual part, the celestial part, and this, the lowly material part.”10 Such
a reading not only accounts for the creaturely origins of the angels, or intel-
lects, it places them as the very first act and order of divine creation.
According to this reading, a conscious negation of an identification of the
sefirot as the Separate Intellects makes perfect sense. If it is through the sefirot that
the intellectual realm is created, then it is impossible for the two to be synony-
mous; the sefirot must be ontically beyond even the intellectual realm, and must
not be created, but emanated. This fits well with Abravanel’s prior negation of the
parity between the sefirot and the Separate Intellects and with other points in his
writings where he supports the emanation of the sefirot. But there is one colos-
sal problem: Abravanel rejects Nahmanides’ theory of the creation of the angels,
categorically. He notes two major flaws in this reading. The first is that the name
Elohim is used repeatedly in the biblical account of creation, as in: And Elohim
said,11 And Elohim called,12 etc. It would not make sense for all of these to be in ref-
erence to the angels, who would then be the creators of everything, and it would
not make sense for only the first mention of Elohim to be in reference to the angels,
while the rest are in reference to God. The second flaw in Nahmanides’ reading is
grammatical. If Elohim is an object of creation and not the subject, then according
to Hebrew syntax, it should take the direct object marker et, as do “heavens” and
“earth” in the first verse of the bible. Since it does not, then it cannot be an object
of creation, but must remain as its subject, namely, as God the Creator.
Notwithstanding the fact that Abravanel’s main focus here is the ultimate
rejection of Nahmanides’ reading of the creation of the angels, there is an

9  Mif’alot, 58: .‫באמצעות החכמה שהיא הראשית ברא אלקים את השמים ואת הארץ‬
10  Abravanel, Commentary on Genesis, 5: ‫ והחוא‬,‫ השמימיי‬,‫ השכלי‬:‫הם שלושת חלקי הנמצא‬
.‫ מרי השפל הזה‬This is conspicuously similar to Pico, who in his Heptaplus (p. 75) states:
“Antiquity imagined three worlds. Highest of all is that ultra-mundane one which theo-
logians call the angelic and philosophers the intelligible, and of which, Plato says in the
Phaedrus, no one has worthily sung [Phaedrus 247c]. Next to this comes the celestial
world, and last of all, this sublunary one which we inhabit.”
11  Genesis 1:3, 1:6, 1:1:9, et al.
12  Genesis 1:5, 1:8, et al.
64 Chapter 3

ancillary topic that is of great importance to our discussion. Namely, Abravanel’s

citation of Nahmanides and his treatment of the idea of God’s creation of
the angels, the heavens and the earth through Hokhmah shows a familiarity
with, and an appreciation of hypostatically kabbalistic ideas of the beginning.
According to the Nahmanidean quote, not only does creation begin with the
sefirah of Hokhmah, this sefirah itself has its own beginning as a crown upon its
own head, which in itself is a euphemism for its own beginning in Keter.
Herein, then, is contained an idea of the beginning of the beginning. In this
vein, Abravanel goes on to further explain what he deems to be Nahmanides’
purpose. “The true intention of the Rabbi,” he writes, reverently referring to
Nahmanides, “is to interpret the word Bereshit as relating to the sefirah of
Hokhmah, by way of the kabbalists, such that with all of the sefirot being the
heads of created entities, the sefirah of Hokhmah is the beginning of those
same heads.”13 He does not expand, most probably due to the fact that to do so
would take him beyond the specific angelic discussion at hand, but his explicit
usage of the term rosh, or “head” to describe the sefirot seems quite telling. By
using this term, he seems to be expanding beyond the Nahmanidean idea of
Keter as sitting atop the head of Hokhmah. He seems to be positing that all the
sefirot below Hokhmah are the “heads” of created entities, with Hokhmah as
their true beginning, or head.
In addition to the conventional association of heads with minds, or
thoughts, they are also often associated with beginnings in Hebrew. This dual
characterization seems to be what Abravanel has in mind by tying this meta-
phor to the sefirot. While not fully drawn out in his commentary on Genesis or
in his Mif’alot Elohim, this portrayal of the sefirot seems to relate to Abravanel’s
subsequent depiction of them as Platonic Forms. In a now well-known and
amply discussed passage from his answers to the questions of Saul ha-Kohen
of Crete,14 Abravanel writes:

The existence of a thing is necessarily an active depiction before the

existence of that action is actually active. And this image is without a

13  Mif’alot, 58: ‫אבל אמתת כונת הרב היא לפרש מלת בראשית על ספירת החכמה כדרך המקוא‬
‫בלים לפי שעם היות הספירות כלן ראשים לנבראים הנה ספירת החכמה היא ראשית אותם‬
.‫הראשים‬
14  See: Lawee, Isaac Abarbanel’s Stance Toward Tradition, 46; Feldman, Philosophy in a Time
of Crisis, 156; Moshe Idel, “Kabbalah and Ancient Philosophy in the Thought of Rabbi Isaac
and Rabbi Judah Abravanel” [Hebrew], The Philosophy of Love of Judah Abravanel: Four
Lectures on the Study Day of the University of Haifa (Haifa: Kibbutz ha-Meuhad, 1985), 77;
Idem, “Magical and Neoplatonic Interpretations,” 147; Ogren, “Sefirotic Depiction, Divine
Noesis, and Aristotelian Kabbalah,” 592.
On the Wisdom of Angels 65

doubt the world of the sefirot, which were mentioned by the wise men of
truth; these are divine depictions, through which the world was created.
Thus, they said that the sefirot are not created, but are emanated, and
that all of them are unified within Him, may He be blessed. For they are
the depiction of His righteousness and His will in regard to that which He
created. This was truly the idea of the separate, all-encompassing Forms
that Plato set down, and it is not as Aristotle understood from this.15

Important for the discussion at hand is the idea espoused here that the sefirot
are the emanated divine Forms, or Ideas, “through which the world was cre-
ated.” It is quite plausible that in this regard, they are the “heads of created
entities” spoken of in Mif’alot Elohim. First, it is probably no coincidence that
“head” relates to mind, which is the locus of ideas, or formal depictions,
that then get transformed into created entities through action. The sefirot rep-
resent the divine parallel to the anthropomorphic process of cognition leading
to action, but in this case, the Ideas of this process are emanated from God
and then bring forth from themselves, as “depictions,” or blueprints, existents
as created entities based upon those depictions. Second, as the “heads of
created entities,” these depictions are truly the beginning of those entities, for
without them, the created entities would not be able to come into existence.
Furthermore, the explicit criticism of Aristotle here meshes with Abravanel’s
previous criticism of the sefirot read as the Separate Intellects. This lends fur-
ther support to the idea that the sefirot as the heads of creation are equiva-
lent to their conceptualization as Platonic Forms, a conceptualization that
Abravanel ultimately champions.
In a different place, Abravanel relies on another metaphor to describe the
sefirot in relation to creation, which is connected to the concepts of heads and
depictions and which also stems from a Platonic line of thinking, but which
follows the pattern of Alemanno and Pico by entering more deeply into the
dialectics of speech. This is the metaphor of “utterances.” Commenting on
Pirkei Avot, which states that “with ten utterances the world was created,”16
Abravanel writes:

15  Abravanel, Questions of the wise and honorable Saul Ha-Kohen, 12d: ‫מציאות הדבר בציור‬
‫הפועל קוד' בהכרח למציאות הפעולה ההיא בפועל והצלם הזה בלי ספק הוא עולם הספירות‬
‫שזכרו חכמי האמת שהם ציורי' אלהיים שבהם נברא העולם ולכן אמרו שהספירות אינם‬
‫נבראות אלא נאצלות ושכלם מתאחדות בו יתבר' כי הם ציור חסידותו ורצונו במה שברא וזה‬
.‫היה באמת דעת הצורו' הנבדלות הכוללו' שהניח אפלטון ולא כמו שהבין ממנו ארסטו‬
16  Avot 5:1: .‫בעשרה מאמרות נברא העולם‬
66 Chapter 3

The wise men of Truth received a tradition that these ten utterances
are the supernal sefirot, and they called them “utterances” due to the fact
that the Holy One, blessed is He, emanated them from His own essence,
just as an utterance emanates from the mouth of a man. Thus, Sefer
Yetzirah begins: “With thirty-two paths of Wisdom, the Lord engraved,
etc.,” and then explains that they are ten sefirot and twenty-two letters.
And there it says: “Ten and not nine, ten and not eleven.” And since
the sages, may their memories be for a blessing, were situated within
the secret of the prophets, who were situated within the secret of the
Lord, and they knew that the sefirot are the utterances and that they are
ten and not nine, they were required to say that Bereshit is really an utter-
ance that completes the ten. It is to this that the Targum Yerushalmi
intended in translating Bereshit bara as B’Hukhmta bara, for Hokhmah is
one of the sefirot.17

It is important to note that in somewhat of a gezerah shavah (a decree by

­analogy) if we are to avail ourselves of rabbinic hermeneutics, this passage
seems to connect back to the original passage with which we began, which
Abravanel quotes from Nahmanides. There, as here, the Targum Yerushalmi is
cited as an authority by way of its translation of the Hebrew Bereshit into the
Aramaic B’Hukhmta, thereby signaling a hint at the second sefirah of Hokhmah,
which begins creation.18 In the Nahmanidean passage, Hokhmah as the begin-
ning is “crowned with the crown of Bet,” possibly signifying a connection to
the sefirah of Keter, which begins the beginning but is beyond it, while here
Hokhmah completes the ten utterances, which are understood by Abravanel to
be the sefirot.
The idea that these sefirot are emanated in the same manner that “an utter-
ance emanates from the mouth of a man” is highly reminiscent of a previ-
ously discussed statement by Alemanno regarding speech, where Alemanno
writes: “Don’t you see that if the speaker were to fall silent, then the existence

17  Abravanel, Nahalat Avot, 300: ‫חכמי האמת קבלו כי אלו העשרה מאמרות הם הספירות‬
‫העליונות וקראו אותם מאמרות לפי שהקב"ה האצילם מעצמו כמו שמאצל המאמר מפי‬
‫ וכן מתחיל ספר יצירה בשלשים ושתים נתיבות חכמה חקק השם וכו' ופירש שהם‬.‫האיש‬
.‫עשר ספירות ועשרים ושתים אותיות ושם אמרו עשר ולא תשע עשר ולא אחת עשרה‬
‫ולפי שהם ז"ל עמדו בסוד הנביאים אשר עמדו בסוד יי' וידעו שהספירות הם המאמרות‬
‫ ואליו כיון‬.‫ושהם עשרה ולא תשעה הוצרכו לומר בראשית נמי מאמר הוא לתשלום העשרה‬
‫המתרגם הירושלמי במה שתרגם בראשית ברא בחכמתא ברא כי החכמה היא מאחת מן‬
.‫הספירות‬
18  The extant manuscripts of the Targum Yerushalmi actually have B’Hukhma and not
B’hukhmta. See Targum Yerushalmi, 3.
On the Wisdom of Angels 67

of his spoken word would fall into privation?”19 It is important to recall that
Alemanno attributes this idea of emanated speech to Plato and that at a later
point, he links emanated speech to divine depictions, stating: “Speech and say-
ing are representations of the internal depiction that emanates outward and
is revealed.”20 This parallel, even if only phenomenological, may very well pro-
vide an explanatory link between Abravanel’s idea of the sefirot as “utterances”
as stated in this passage from Nahalat Avot, and his previously discussed idea
of the sefirot as “depictions,” which are Platonic Forms, as stated in his answers
to the questions of Saul ha-Kohen of Crete.
Another parallel between Abravanel and Alemanno, which is also shared with
Pico, is that Bereshit as isomorphically related to the sefirah of Hokhmah is actu-
ally the very first utterance through which the entirety of creation came about.
Whether Abravanel intended this as an unsaid saying or as latent speech made
manifest, like Alemanno and Pico respectively, is an idea that itself remains
unsaid by Abravanel and is thus not entirely manifest. Regardless, the idea is
not unique to our thinkers being discussed here. As Shaul Magid remarks more
generally, “The Kabbalists, searching for the origin of divine speech internal to
God Himself or the infinite (silent) language of God, conjure a silent utterance
(ma’amar satum) that lies at the root of the ten utterances of creation.”21 He
goes on to note that the “silent speech (ma’amar satum) brings forth creation
speech (ma’amarot or dibburim), that is heard, followed by a text that is seen
and subsequently read.”22 The perception is that such utterance not only cre-
ates, it gives rise to Torah, which is the ultimate revelation of the Creator.
For Abravanel, the speech of creation is actually contained within the rev-
elation that is Torah. Thus, the ten utterances spoken of in Pirkei Avot are actu-
ally contained therein, leading back to the assertion that Bereshit is in fact “the
beginning,” or the very first utterance. The reason for this assertion is the fact
that only nine instances of the term Vayomer, “And God said,” appear in rela-
tion to commands of creation in the first chapter of Genesis.23 The idea is that

19  Ms. Paris BN Heb. 270, fol. 10a: .‫ הלא תראה כי אם ישתוק המדבר יעדר מציאות הדבור‬Also
see the discussion in chapter one, above.
20  Ms. Paris BN Heb. 270, 22b: .‫הדבור והאמירה הם חקוי הציור הפנימי המתפשט לחוץ ומתגלה‬
and the discussion in chapter one, above.
21  Magid, “Origin and Overcoming the Beginning,” 175.
22  Ibid.
23  BT Rosh ha-Shanah 32a on Pirkei Avot 5:1, the latter of which states that “The world was
created with ten sayings.” In regard to the fact that only nine instances of the term ‫ויאמר‬
appear in relation to commands in the first chapter of Genesis, the passage in BT Rosh
ha-Shanah states that “the words In the beginning are also a saying, as it is written, By
the word of the Lord the heavens were made (Psalm 33:6). As noted in chapter one above,
this idea was also discussed by Alemanno.
68 Chapter 3

if God only explicitly uttered, or “said” something that then came to be only
nine times in the narrative, and Pirkei Avot asserts that the world was created
with ten utterances, then the term Bereshit must tacitly make up the tenth. The
first verse must then be understood as something akin to “Through God’s first
(or beginning) utterance, He created the heavens and the earth.” For Abravanel,
as for Alemanno and for Pico, this “first,” or “beginning,” is Hokhmah.24 Thus,
the very first utterance, which is the beginning of all utterances and which
brings both the heavens and the earth into being, can be understood to be
God’s Wisdom, which for Abravanel is the seat of his Ideal Forms.
Unique to Abravanel amongst the thinkers being analyzed here is his asso-
ciation of the subsequent utterances included with the first, and of the notion
that they are all together “ten and not nine,” with Sefer Yetzirah. This association
has further reaching linguistic implications for Abravanel’s theory of the begin-
ning of creation through the sefirot than it may seem at first thought. Indeed,
according to this association, not only are the sefirot utterances, but as part of
the thirty-two paths of Wisdom, they are also connected to the twenty-two let-
ters of the Hebrew alphabet. Thus, what Abravanel seems to be positing here is
that the uttered word and the written word are two sides of the same coin. Both
make up the paths of Wisdom, which thus make up Hokhmah, and both func-
tion as the building blocks of creation. It would seem, then, that the beginning
of creation is dictated by all aspects of language, and that in turn language, in
all of its aspects, comprises Wisdom. The written word and the spoken word
ultimately come together in Hokhmah, and they emanate from there as the vital
forces of creation.
Abravanel’s idea of the dual creative nature of divine language as repre-
sented by both the sefirot as utterances and the Hebrew letters as written forms

24  Abravanel does not account for the fact that by beginning with Hokhmah and leaving
out Keter, he would arrive at nine and not ten according to the schema of the sefirot. The
only caveat that he seems to provide is to state: “Indeed, the matter and manner of their
unity and the manner of their differences from each other is not the issue here, even
though I would answer that I did not learn wisdom, and even less so the knowledge of
holy things.” [‫ואמנם מה ענינם ואופן התאחדם ואופן הבדלם זו מזו אינו מענין זה המאמר אף‬
‫( ]כי אנכי אעננו שלא למדתי חכמה וכל שכן דעת קדושים‬Nahalat Avot, 300). Though the
claim to be a non-kabbalist is significant in terms of Abravanel’s overall self-­perception,
in this case, the declaration that he did not learn Kabbalah or kabbalistic secrets seems
to be a way of circumventing any shortcomings in his applications of kabbalistic con-
cepts. For more on Abravanel’s self-perception in regard to Kabbalah, see: Liron Hoch,
Ma’aseh Merkavah in the Philosophy of Don Isaac Abarbanel, against the Background
of the Philosophy of Maimonides and Medieval Jewish Philosophers [Hebrew] (University of
Haifa, unpublished doctoral dissertation, 2012), 4–6; and Lawee, Isaac Abarbanel’s Stance
Toward Tradition, 46–47.
On the Wisdom of Angels 69

has a strong parallel in his Ateret Zeqenim, which is his earliest work, composed
in Lisbon sometime in the late 1460s.25 There he writes:

The letters of His name, may He be blessed, are ten when written out
fully. And all of the existents, supernal and lower, come into being from
Him. Like the existence of the flashes of light from the sun, from the let-
ters of His name of existence (shemo havaya), one letter comes from
another letter. For this reason, the existents at the act of creation were of
the same number, and Abraham our father was tried by ten trials, and the
world was created with ten utterances, and the Egyptians were struck in
Egypt with ten plagues, and also on the sea. And all of the other decads
are according to the numbering of those same letters that overflow from
Him, being the supernal powers and excellent qualities that unify in Him,
if the name power and quality were said in regard to them. As the sages,
may their memories be for a blessing, have said [in regard to the verse]:
That I may display these My signs in his midst [Exodus 10:1]; do not read
‘My signs’ (‘Ototai), but ‘My letters’ (‘Otiotai).26 It is clear from this that
the divine knowledge is acquired by way of the ten matters, and they are
called the sefirot.27

Here the fullness of the Hebrew alphabet is replaced by the letters of the
Tetragrammaton; but the correspondence between the letters and the ten
sefirot in this case is even more pronounced than in Abravanel’s previously
discussed passages. When each letter of the Tetragrammaton is spelled out, we
arrive at yod vav dalet, heh alef, vav alef vav, heh alef, which is a total of ten let-
ters. Thus, the name of God itself, which is parallel to His essence, is made up of
ten, in conjunction with the sefirot. Moreover, at play here is the term havaya,
i.e. “existence,” which itself is a simple permutation of the Tetragrammaton. It
is thus no coincidence that “all of the existents, supernal and lower, come into

25  For a detailed exposition of this work, see Lawee, Isaac Abarbanel’s Stance Toward
Tradition, 59–82.
26  This same formula appears in Abravanel’s Commentary on Exodus, 24:18.
27  Ateret Zeqenim (Amsterdam: Orphans of Shlomo Proofs, 1739), 39b: '‫היו אותיות שמו ית‬
‫במלואו עשרה וכל ההויות עליונות ותחתונו' מתהוים ממנו כהויה ניצוצי האור מן השמש‬
‫מאותיות שמו הויה אחת מאות אחת ולזה היו ההויות במעשה בראשית באותו המנין ונתנסה‬
‫אברהם אבינו בעשר נסיונות ונברא העולם בעשרה מאמרות והיכו המצריים במצרים עשר‬
‫מכות ועל הים ג"כ ויתר העשיריות כלם הלא הם כפי מנין אותם האותיות הנשפעות ממנו‬
‫להיותה כחות עליונות וסגולות נפלאות מתאחדות בו אם היה שיאמר עליהם שם הכח והסא‬
‫ וכמו שאמרו חז"ל למען שתי אתתי אלה בקרבו אל תקרי אותותי אלא אותיותי התבאר‬.‫גולה‬
.‫מזה שהידיעה האלדית נקנות בעשרה ענינים וקראום הספירות‬
70 Chapter 3

being from Him,” and that the fullness of the Hebrew alphabet emanates from
“His name of existence,” i.e. the Tetragrammaton.
Here Abravanel invokes the very same chapter from Pirkei Avot as in the pre-
viously discussed passage from Nahalat Avot, in which he deals with the sefirot
as “utterances.” While in the Nahalat Avot passage, the invocation of Pirkei Avot
relates to a correlation between the ten sefirot and the ten “utterances,” here
it relates to the usage of the number ten more generally within Hebrew litera-
ture, as ultimately correlating with the ten letters that make up the fullness of
the four letter divine name. Whether intended or not, Abravanel’s move here
resembles the Pythagorean tetractys, and instead of moving from ten to thirty-
two, as in the previous example, here the move is from four to ten. In the previ-
ously discussed passage, the focus is on the ten utterances as relating back to
Wisdom in conjunction with the twenty-two letters, while here the focus is
on the four letter name of God in relation to the ten. Abravanel seems to posit
here not only that creation emanates from the name and essence of God, but
that through the ten sefirot, the adept can reverse the process and can come to
know God in His name. Creation and divine knowledge, just as the letters and
the sefirot, are thus two sides of the same coin.
The fact that Abravanel wrote this while still in Lisbon in the 1460s is highly
significant in that he was familiar with such linguistic Kabbalah before enter-
ing upon Italian soil. Thus, any resemblances between his usage of Kabbalah
here and that of both Alemanno and Pico may be entirely coincidental. Or
perhaps he had knowledge of such trends prior to his arrival. As Cedric Cohen
Skalli writes concerning Abravanel, “his knowledge of Italian humanism pre-
dates his Italian period; it began in Portugal where he was in regular commer-
cial and literary contact with Tuscany, as we know from his letters to Yehiel da
Pisa and from other commercial documents.”28 By extension, we cannot dis-
count the possibility that his knowledge of Italian uses of linguistic Kabbalah
also predate his stay in Italy, especially given the close ties of Alemanno to
Yehiel da Pisa. Regardless, his writing of Ateret Zekenim predates the writings
of Alemanno and Pico, and we should keep in mind that no clear philosophical
reading, Platonic or otherwise, enters into the picture here. Thus, any type of
influence would be quite difficult, if not impossible to substantiate, and some
of his ideas regarding Kabbalah may have already been formulated within an
Iberian context.
One place in which Abravanel’s Iberian roots seem to show through regard-
ing Kabbalah is within his Genesis commentary, which was actually written

28  Cedric Cohen Skalli, “A Paradigm in Isaac Abravanel’s Encounter with Renaissance
Culture,” in Hebraic Aspects of the Renaissance: Sources and Encounters, edited by Ilana
Zinguer, Abraham Melamed, and Zur Shalev (Leiden and Boston: Brill, 2011), 55.
On the Wisdom of Angels 71

while he was residing in Venice, in his final years of life. In this commentary,
two questions come together: the question of language in shaping and convey-
ing the truths of creation, which is a question that we have been discussing,
and the question of angels coming into the world, which is the question with
which we began our discussion of Abravanel, in relation to Nahmanides on
the phrase Bereshit bara Elohim. For the purpose of expositing these conjoined
questions, Abravanel turns neither to philosophy in either an Aristotelian
or a Platonic key nor to Nahmanides or other traditional commentators on
the Torah, as one might expect. Rather, he quotes a lengthy passage from the
Zohar, in its original Aramaic. The passage is a direct quote from the mouth of
Shimon bar Yohai, and its direct focus is not upon creation, the angels, or any
form of Bereshit, but upon the Torah. The passage begins:

Woe to the person who says that the Torah came forth into the world to
show mere stories and ordinary words! For if it were so, then even at this
very time, we could compose a Torah with ordinary words that is more
praiseworthy than all of those [stories of the Torah]. Even the potentates
of the world possess amongst themselves words that are more sublime.
If it is so, then let us follow after them, and let us compose a Torah from
them! Rather, all the words of the Torah are of this sort: Come and see;
the upper world and the lower world are weighed with one weight. Israel
is below, and the supernal angels are above. Of the supernal angels it is
written: He makes His angels spirits, His servants a flaming fire (Psalm
104:4). This pertains to the supernal realm. At the time that they descend
below, they dress in the garments of this world. If they do not dress in
this manner, then they cannot persist in this world and the world cannot
tolerate them. If this is so with the angels, then in regard to the Torah that
created them and created worlds, when it descended to this world, if it
did not dress in the garments of this world, then the world would not be
able to tolerate it.29

Zohar 3:152a, quoted in Abravanel’s commentary on Genesis, 153: ‫ווי לההוא בר נש דאמר‬
29  
‫ דאי הכי אפילו בזמנא דא אנן‬,‫דהאי אורייתא אתייא לאחזאה סיפורים בעלמא ומילי דהדיוטי‬
‫ אפילו אינון קפסרי דעלמא אית‬.‫יכילין למעבד אורייתא במילי דהדיוטי בשבחא יתיר מכולהו‬
‫ אלא כל מילי דאורייתא‬.‫ אי הכי נזיל בתרייהו ונעביד מנייהו אורייתא‬,‫בינייהו מילין עילאין יתיר‬
,‫ ישראל לתתא‬,‫ תא חזי עלמא עילאה ועלמא תתאה בחדא מתקלא יתתקלו‬,‫כי האי גוונא‬
‫ 'עושה מלאכיו רוחות משרתיו‬:)‫ ד‬,‫ מלאכי עילאי כתוב (תהילים קד‬.‫מלאכי עילאי לעילא‬
‫ ואי‬,‫ הא באתרא עילאה בשעתא דנחתין לתתא מתלבשי בלבושא דהאי עלמא‬,'‫אש לוהט‬
,‫ ואי במלאכין כך‬,‫לא מתלבשין כגוונא דא לא יכלי למיקם בהאי עלמא ולא סביל להון עלמא‬
‫ כיוון דנחתא להאי עלמא אי לא דמתלא‬,‫אורייתא דברא להו וברא לעלמין כולהו וקיימי בגינה‬
.‫ בשא בהני לבושין דהאי עלמא לא יכיל עלמא למסבלא‬For an alternate translation of this
and what follows, see: The Zohar: Pritzker Edition, translation and commentary by Daniel
72 Chapter 3

The connection of this complex passage to our present discussion of the begin-
ning of creation is not immediately apparent, but it starkly reveals itself in the
rich tacit inter-text of a comment that is seemingly made only incidentally.
This is the comment that the Torah “created them (i.e., angels) and created
worlds.” Torah is beyond all worlds because it created them, and in order to
enter into the world and to relate to in on an immanent level, it needs to take
on the precise veil of creation that it created.30
The concept of the Torah as creator is echoed in another part of the Zohar,
which states: “By Torah the world was created, as is written: I was by Him as
(amon), a nursling (Proverbs 8:30). Do not read (amon), a nursling, but rather
(oman), an artisan.”31 Daniel Matt correctly points out that the Zohar here
seems to be taking its cue from Bereshit Rabbah, which, commenting upon this
very verse from Proverbs in relation to Bereshit states:

Another way [of reading] amon, i.e., ‘confidant’ or ‘nursling,’ is as oman,

i.e., artisan. The Torah says: “I was the artistic tool of the Holy One, blessed
is He.” As is the practice within the world, when a king of flesh and blood
builds a palace, he does not build it from his own knowledge, but from
the knowledge of an artisan (or: architect). And the architect does not
build it from his own knowledge, but rather, he has plans and diagrams
that help him know how to make the rooms and how to make the narrow
gates. In this manner, the Holy One, blessed is He, looked at the Torah
and created the world. And the Torah said: In the beginning God created

C. Matt, volume 8 (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2014), 518–520. In order to stay true
to Abravanel’s usage of the text, I have translated it here according to his citation. It is
important to note that this same passage also appears in Isaac Arama’s Aqedat Yitzhak—
in his commentary on the book of Ruth there, and then again in a section entitled Hazut
Kashah—thereby substantiating a claim by Arama’s son that Abravanel visited with his
older Spanish contemporary in Naples and that some of Abravanel’s ideas actually came
from Arama. While it is entirely plausible that Abravanel had access to this text on his
own, it is more probable that he was copying from his Iberian elder. For more on this
exchange, see Lawee, Isaac Abravanel’s Stance Toward Tradition, 42, and 255 fn. 34.
30 This relates to the conflation of “logos theology,” which holds the Torah as divine, and “incar-
national theology,” which holds the body as divine, as explicated by Shaul Magid (Hasidism
Incarnate, 49). In Magid’s discussion, the conflation is within the person of the zaddik. In the
Zohar and Abravanel, the conflation is within the personified text of the Torah.
31  The Zohar: Pritzker Edition, translation and commentary by Daniel C. Matt, volume 7
(Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2012), 208; Zohar 3:35b: ,‫באוריתא אתברי עלמא‬
.‫ אל תקרי אמון אלא אומן‬.‫ ואהיה אצלו אמון‬:‫דכתיב‬
On the Wisdom of Angels 73

(Genesis 1:1), and there is no beginning i.e., reshit but the Torah, as it is
said: the Lord made me the beginning of His way (Proverbs 8:22).32

By way of this tacit rabbinic inter-text as filtered through the Zohar and then
making its way into the Genesis commentary of Abravanel, Torah takes on
a special hypostatic status akin to Hokhmah. Not only are both explicitly
equated with Bereshit, both are also credited with creation. Just as Hokhmah is
the beginning of the sefirot in their role as blueprints for creation, as has been
discussed in relation to both Pico and Abravanel, so too is the supernal Torah
here, for Bereshit Rabbah and for the Zohar as cited by Abravanel, God’s master
plan and point of departure.
With this background of Torah as Hokhmah, or as Bereshit, i.e., “the begin-
ning” of creation, Abravanel’s citation of the Zohar takes on an entirely dif-
ferent layer of meaning, as does the theory of the garment expressed there.
Indeed, revealed Torah seems to be a different Torah than the Torah of creation,
which would place the term Bereshit itself, as representing Torah or Hokhmah,
at a variance with that which it is purporting to represent as the beginning of
existence. This seems to have resonance with Alemanno’s idea of the simula-
crum, as explained in chapter one above. We recall that for Alemanno, the writ-
ten Torah is a simulacrum, or an imperfect representation of the direct speech
of God, and speech itself is a mere simulacrum of depiction, which in turn is a
simulacrum of the spiritual existent as found within the ultimate Source. Along
these same lines of thought, the Zohar passage quoted by Abravanel continues:

Come and see: There is a garment that is seen by all, and those who are
foolish, when they see a person who appears to them good-looking, look
no further. They think that that garment is the body, and from the gar-
ment, they think that the body is the soul, in this manner. In this way,
the Torah has a body, and the words of this Torah are called “bodies of
Torah.” This body dresses itself in the garment that is these stories of this
world. Those who are the fools of this world only look at that garment,
which is the stories of the Torah. And those who know more do not look

Bereshit Rabbah 1:1: ‫ בנוהג‬.‫ התורה אומרת אני הייתי כלי אומנתו של הקב״ה‬.‫ד"א אמון אומן‬
32  
‫ והאומן‬.‫שבעולם מלך בשר ודם בונה פלטין אינו בונה אותה מדעת עצמו אלא מדעת אומן‬
‫אינו בונה אותה מדעת עצמו אלא דיפתראות ופינקסאות יש לו לדעת היאך הוא עושה‬
‫ כך היה הקב״ה מביט בתורה ובורא את העולם והתורה‬.‫חדרים היאך הוא עושה פשפשין‬
‫ ה' קנני ראשית‬:‫אמרה בראשית ברא אלהים ואין ראשית אלא תורה היאך מה דאת אמר‬
.)‫ דרכו (משלי ח‬For more on the connection between this Midrashic passage and the veil
of Torah as presented in the Zohar, see the comments by Daniel Matt, The Zohar, vol. 7,
p. 208, fn. 1, and vol. 8, p. 519, fn. 90.
74 Chapter 3

at the garment, but at the body that is under the garment. Wise servants
of the supernal King, those who stood at Mount Sinai, only look at the
soul, which is the essence of all, the Torah proper. And in the world-to-
come, they are able to look upon the soul of the soul of the Torah, which
is the Ancient Holy One, and everything is unified together.33

“The Ancient Holy One” is a common epithet for Keter, which here is cast as “the
soul of the soul of the Torah.” The soul of Torah, as we have noted, is Hokhmah,
while the bodies of Torah are the words, and the garments are the stories.
A clear hierarchy of truth and essence is being established, related to the non-
created realm, the process of creation, and finally, the created, material realm.
This process also runs in reverse, and a vision of Keter as the inner soul beyond
all creation is reserved only for the righteous in the world-to-come. Visions of
Hokhmah as “the Torah proper” and “the essence of all” creation are available
to the righteous of this world, who receive both the garment and the body but
who are able to see beyond both.
Yet in regard to the hierarchy explicitly set out in this passage, Abravanel
starkly warns: “Just as in regard to man we cannot deny the existence of the gar-
ment and the existence of the body that bears it, so too in regard to the Torah,
we cannot deny these three factors: an understanding of the words, which is the
garment, the meaning of the stories and their truthfulness, which is the body,
and that which is hidden and concealed within them, which is the level of the
soul.”34 Abravanel, then, diverges subtly yet importantly from both Alemanno
and from the Zohar passage that he is citing. For him, the hierarchy is not a
matter of simulacra or of a distancing from the core and the truth. Rather, for
him, the soul, the body, and the garment seem to be different modes of the
same truth. For this reason, he ultimately admonishes: “Keep yourself from
having anything evil in your heart arise from any doubt in regard to that which
the literal sense of Scriptures makes known. And so too, do not reject exegesis

33  Zohar 3:152a, quoted in Abravanel’s commentary on Genesis, 153–154: ‫תא חזי אית לבושא‬
,‫ ואילין טפשין כד חמאן לבר נש דמתחזי להון שפירא לא מסתכלן יתיר‬,‫דמתחזי לכולא‬
‫ כהאי גוונא אורייתא‬.‫חשיבו דההוא לבושא גופא וחשיבו מלבושא דגופא נשמתא כגוונא דא‬
‫ הא גופא מתלבשא בלבושא דאינון‬,‫אית לה גופא ומלין דאורייתא דא אתקריין גופי תורה‬
‫ טפשין דהאי עלמא לא מסתכלין אלא בההוא לבושא דאיהו סיפורי‬.‫סיפורים דהאי עלמא‬
‫ חכימין‬.‫ ודידעי יתיר לא מסתכלי בלבושא אלא בגופא דאיהו תחות ההוא לבושא‬.‫דאורייתא‬
‫ לא מסתכלין אלא בנשמתא דאיהו עיקרא‬,‫ אינון דקיימין בטורא דסיני‬,‫עבדי דמלכא עילאה‬
‫ איהו‬,‫ ולעלמא דאתא זמינין לאיסתכלא בנשמתא דנשמתא דאורייתא‬,‫דכולא אורייתא ממש‬
.‫עתיקא קדישא דכולא אחיד דא בדא‬
34  Abravanel, Commentary on Genesis, 154: ‫וכמו שלא נוכל להכחיש באדם מציאות הלבוש‬
‫ הבנת‬:‫ כן לא נוכל להכחיש בתורה שלושת העניינים האלה‬,‫ומציאות הגוף הנושא אותו‬
‫ והרמז הנסתר אשר בם שהוא‬,‫ וכוונת הסיפורים ואמתתם שהוא הגוף‬,‫המילות שהוא הלבוש‬
.‫במדרגת הנשמה‬
On the Wisdom of Angels 75

in the manner of secret knowledge concerning them [i.e., Scriptures], for this,
without a doubt, is the fruit of learning and its goal.” After all, he goes on to
claim, “God made the one over against the other.”35 Creation and revelation
are ultimately two parts of the same process connecting back to God through
Torah. So are the supernal hypostasis of Hokhmah and the highly charged word
Bereshit, which begins the Torah and which acts as a garment for it and for
Hokhmah (which are actually synonymous on some level) in this world.
Abravanel’s discussion of the garment in relation to creation carries over
into his Mif’alot Elohim, where he treats a passage from Pirkei d’Rabbi Eliezer
that states: “From what place were the heavens created? From the light of the
garment of the Holy One, blessed is He, which is a garment that He took from
Himself and spread out like a tunic.”36 In a fascinating passage that hinges on the
idea of the Separate Intellects but touches on the Sefirot, Abravanel expounds:

The divine Rabbi Eliezer brought proof for his opinion from King David,
may peace be upon him: He covers Himself with light, like a tunic, He
stretches out the heavens, like a parchment [Psalm 104:2]. He interpreted
this like the rest of the wise men whom I mentioned, i.e., that at the
beginning, the Holy One, blessed is He, covered Himself with light like a
tunic. In other words, just as a man wraps himself inside of a new tunic,
so too did He, may He be blessed, create the separate intellects around
Himself as if He were wrapping Himself inside of them. And through
them, he stretched out the heavens like a parchment, for from them the
heavens extended and came into existence. This was his opinion, which
agrees with the opinion of the rest of the wise men of Israel, and it is truly
a fitting and sound opinion. But indeed, according to the way of the wise
men of the Kabbalah, it is possible to say that the garment that these
holy men attributed to the Lord, may He be blessed, is the supernal
sefirot, which are emanated from Him. And since they were the begin-
nings of the created entities, Rabbi Eliezer said that the spiritual angels
were the light of His garment, i.e., that this intellectual light extended
from the same garment that was emanated. And the first interpretation
is more correct in my opinion.37

35  Ibid.: ‫ ואל‬.‫ לשום ספק בדבר שיעידו פשוטי הכתובים‬,‫השמר לך פן יהיה דבר עם לבבך בליעל‬
‫ ואת זה‬,‫ כי הוא בלי ספק פרי הלימוד ותכליתו‬,‫תבעט בביאור דעת הנסתר אשר בהם גם כן‬
.‫לעומת זה עשה האלהים‬
36  Pirkei Rabbi Eliezer (Warsaw: Zisburg, 1874), 3b: ‫שמים מאיזה מקום נבראו מאור לבושו של‬
.‫הקב"ה שהוא לבוש לקח ממנו ופרש כשלמה‬
37  Mif’alot Elohim, 73–74: ‫הביא האלקי ר' אליעזר ראיה על דעתו זה ממאמר דוד הע"ה עוטה‬
‫אור כשלמה נוהטה שמים כיריעה שפירושו כמו שפירשוהו שאר החכמים אשר זכרתי שבר�א‬
‫שונה היה הקב"ה עוטה אור כשלמה כלומר שכמו שהאדם יתעטף בשלמה חדשה כן הוא‬
76 Chapter 3

Here Abravanel returns to the question of the creation of the angels, pairing them
with the Separate Intellects. Upon first glance, it seems that he is also pairing the
sefirot with the Separate Intellects, and that this passage matches with the previ-
ously discussed text from the Zohar. Indeed, both passages make use of the idea
of the garment, and both relate to creation. The stretching out of the heavens
“like a parchment” as mentioned here could very well be related to the scroll of a
Torah, which, as we have seen, plays a pivotal role in the Zoharic passage.
Nevertheless, a closer examination reveals a clear contradistinction.
Abravanel posits here that perhaps it is “possible” to say that the garment of
light through which God created the heavens is the emanated sefirot, but that
it is “more correct” in his opinion to say that it is the created Separate Intellects.
Thus, while this passage seems to be related to the earlier cited Zoharic text,
there is in fact a large discrepancy between the two. Here he comes down on
the side of the Separate Intellects as the beginning of God’s creation and the
media through which He relates to the world; these are created entities given
the name “angels” in Jewish literature.
Abravanel seems, here, to be turning full-circle to his discussion of Nahmanides
and Hokhmah in relation to the production of angels as the first act of creation.
There he ultimately rejects the idea, as based on the specific exegesis that he sees
as muddling the literal sense. This is precisely what he warns against in the above
Zohar passage regarding the garment, and thus, even if his thought at times seems
to shift, his exegetical principles remain consistent. Regardless, the manner in
which he frames his discourse on the previously discussed Nahmanidean passage
displays familiarity with the hypostatic notion of Hokhmah as Reshit. Here, by
contrast, he seems to support the idea of angels, or Separate Intellects, as the first
created entities and the medium through which God creates. Notwithstanding,
he acknowledges the idea of the sefirot as “the beginnings of the created enti-
ties,” and he explicitly mentions their “emanation,” in contradistinction to the
“creation” of the Intellects. For Abravanel, the possibility that the garment of light
that begins creation refers to the sefirot not only remains open, but it is explic-
itly stated. Along with his richly textured quote from the Zohar on the garment,
this openness, even if secondary to a philosophical or to a more encompassing
exegetical reading, lends further intricacy to our understanding of Abravanel’s
knowledge and respect for kabbalistic traditions concerning the beginning.

‫יתברך ברא השכלים הנבדלים סביבותיו כאלו נתעטף בהם ובאמצעותם היה נוטה שמים‬
‫כיריעה כי מהם נמשכו ונמצאו השמים זה היה דעתו מסכים לדעת שאר חכמי ישראל והוא‬
‫באמת דעת נאות ובריא אולם אמנם כפי דרך חכמי הקבלה אפשר לומר שהלבוש אשר יחסו‬
‫ ולפי שהן היו התחלות לדבא‬.‫הקדושים האלה להש"י הם הספירות העליונות הנאצלות מאתו‬
‫רים הנבראים לכן אמר ר' אליעזר שהמלאכים הרוחניים היו אור לבושו ר"ל שזה האור השכלי‬
.‫היה נמשך מאותו לבוש הנאצל והפירוש הראשון הוא היותר ישר אצלי‬
 Chapter 4

On the Wisdom of Beauty—Leone Ebreo on Art

and Creation

It is fitting to begin our discourse on Leone Ebreo’s understanding of the begin-

ning in relation to Wisdom with a commentary concerning the very structure
of his Dialoghi d’amore. True to their name, they are a series of three dialogues
between two protagonists: Filone, i.e., “Love,” and Sofia, i.e., “Wisdom.” The
names and thoughts of the two characters in union form “philosophy,” and
Angela Guidi has convincingly argued that “Filone,” who has the same name as
the first century Alexandrian Jewish philosopher “Philo” but in an Italianized
form that is often rendered “Yedidya” in Hebrew, actually represents King
Solomon.1 This is based in part on 2 Samuel 12:25, in which Solomon receives
the specific name “Yedidya.” In the same context, Guidi makes the claim that
Sofia actually represents the Queen of Sheba, who came to test Solomon’s wis-
dom with riddles.2 If this is the case, then there is indeed a conscious interac-
tion between Jewish and non-Jewish sources of wisdom at play here, and
the ultimate master of wisdom, which fundamentally relates to the secrets
of the beginning of creation, is the specifically Jewish paradigm of the homo
­universalis, King Solomon.
Sofia entices and tests Filone, but like Solomon in the face of the Queen
of Sheba, Filone is able to hold his own, and even to impress Sofia with his
outstanding theoretical wisdom. Yet throughout, as Joseph Klausner already
noted over eighty four years ago, Sofia desires to gain theoretical, or contem-
plative wisdom from Filone, while Filone desires to gain practical, or ecstatic
wisdom from Sofia.3 Interestingly, then, the roles seem to be the reverse of
what one might expect in relation to Jewish praxis and Greek philosophy:
Filone as the representative of Jewish wisdom is the seat of the contemplative
aspect of knowledge, while Sofia as the representative of non-Jewish wisdom

1  Angela Guidi, Amour et Sagesse. Les Dialogues d’amour de Juda Abravanel dans la tradition
salomonienne (Leiden and Boston: Brill, 2011), 125–140; idem, “Chokhmà e filosofia: i Dialoghi
d’amore di Yehudà Abravanel nella cultura del rinascimento,” La Rassegna Mensile di Israel,
vol. lxxiii, n. 3 (Settembre–Decembre 2007): 1–27, especially 12–13.
2  1 Kings 10:1, and 2 Chronicles 9:1.
3  Joseph Klausner, “Don Yehuda Abravanel and His Philosophy of Love” [Hebrew], Tarbiz 3
(1932): 72–73.

© koninklijke brill nv, leiden, ���6 | doi ��.��63/9789004330634_006

78 Chapter 4

is the origin of practical knowledge. Regardless, it is only with the conjunc-

tion of the two that true philosophy is achieved. This seems to be the ideal
state, which neutralizes any particularistic element by bringing wisdom as
the beginning of creation out of the religious realm of a specific sacred narra-
tive and into the universal realm of common understanding. Only in this state
can Jewish wisdom enter into dialogue with, and perhaps even conjoin with
non-Jewish wisdom, albeit as its metaphysical superior. In this regard, Solomon
as the bearer of truth is important not only due to his reputation for wisdom,
but also due to his universal appeal, which, in its very universal character, para-
doxically makes Solomon superior.
It is important to note that the equivalence goes beyond Filone and
Solomon, and seems to also include Leone himself, while the equivalence of
Sofia and the Queen of Sheba seems to include Leone’s own flirtations with
non-Jewish philosophy. This is attested to by Leone’s autobiographical Hebrew
poem entitled Telunah al ha-Zeman, “A Complaint against the Time,” in which
he writes in the first person, plaintively addressing his kidnapped son:

My elegant understanding is suited to you, and the splendor of my knowl-

edge and wisdom shines within me./Some of it is an inheritance of the
father, my instructor, my father of wisdoms, and he is my teacher and
my master./And some of it was acquired by my hard work; I conquered
it with my own bow and sword./My thoughts plumbed its depths, and
the wise men of Edom were like grasshoppers in my eyes./I went to their
houses of learning, and there was none who could wage a battle with
me./I shall prevail against any man who rises against me and I shall sub-
due and condemn my opponents./Who shall dare to tell about the foun-
dation of the beginning, and the secret of the composite body and that
which rides in it?/I have an extra soul that is more beautiful than the
souls of the wretched people of my generation.4

Wisdom in all of its forms is quite operative here. This includes “elegant under-
standing” and “the splendor of . . . knowledge,” as well as inherited wisdom and

4  Ebreo, “A Complaint Against the Time,” 221: ‫ והוד דעי וחכמה נוססה‬,‫לך יאתה תבונתי הדורה‬
‫ כבשתיה במו‬,‫ ומקצתה קנויה מיגיעי‬/.‫ אבי חכמות והוא מרי ורבי‬,‫אב מאלפי‬-‫ קצתה לי ירשת‬/.‫בי‬
‫ואין‬,‫ הלכתי בבתי מדרשיהם‬/.‫ וחכמי אדום היו בעיני כחגבי‬,‫ ועמקו מחשבותי בה‬/.‫קשתי וחרבי‬
‫ יסוד‬,‫ ומי זה יערב לבו להגיד‬/.‫ ואכניע וארשיע מריבי‬,‫ אנצח אנוש ירום כנגדי‬/.‫מי יערך אתי קרבי‬
.‫ עלי נפשות בני דורי עלובי‬,‫ ולי נפש יתרה נהדרה‬/?‫ ראשית וסוד מרכב ורוכבי‬For an alternative
translation, see: Judah Abravanel, “A Complaint Against the Times,” trans. from the Hebrew
by Dan Almagor, Barbara Garvin and Dan Jacobson, in: Barbara Garvin, “Yehuda Abravanel
and Italian Jewry,” The Jewish Quarterly n. 148 (Winter 1992–3): 59.
On the Wisdom of Beauty 79

wisdom that is acquired. In terms of inherited wisdom, Leone explicitly ties

his legacy to his father Isaac, who was the “father,” or archetype, of many “wis-
doms,” or forms of knowledge. This lends credence to the idea that, as we will
see, Isaac’s very ideas of wisdom in relation to the beginning had an influence
upon Leone. In terms of acquired wisdom, Leone is not at all clear regarding
his sources, but in conjunction with his inherited wisdom, this form of wisdom
seems to round him out as a true homo universalis.5 Leone is thus like Solomon,
in that, at least in his own self-perception, he is able to vanquish all non-Jews
who put him to the test.6 He is able to do this by quite literally utilizing the tra-
ditions of his forefathers, but also by entering into the realm of his opponents
and talking to them, also perhaps quite literally, in their own language.
Leone’s explicit mention of what I have translated as “the foundation of
the beginning, and the secret of the composite body and that which rides in
it” (yesod reshit v’sod merkav v’rokhvi) is especially important to our specific
­context. This seems to be an allusion to the mystical traditions of Judaism,

5  Aaron Hughes has recently suggested “that the complex intersection between Jewish and
non-Jewish ideas and cultures produced if not an outright sense of inferiority then at least
a set of tensions” (“Translation and the Invention of Renaissance Jewish Culture: The Case
of Judah Messer Leon and Judah Abravanel,” in The Hebrew Bible in Fifteenth-Century Spain:
Exegesis, Literature, Philosophy, and the Arts, edited by Jonathan Decter and Arturo Prats
[Leiden and Boston: Brill, 2012], 251). He goes on to argue that the constant need “to defend
Judaism and to do so using the intellectual categories produced by non-Jews reveals a real
sense of tension, if not inferiority” (ibid., fn. 19). While such psychological speculation is
indeed provocative in terms of raising questions of motive and intent, in the case of Leone,
which is one of the cases that Hughes is examining, I see no reason not to take his explic-
itly expressed sense of superiority at its word. Leone saw himself as wiser and more refined
than his non-Jewish contemporaries, precisely due to the complex intersection between his
inherited Jewish wisdom and his obtained non-Jewish knowledge. Moreover, Leone does
not express a constant need to defend Judaism using the intellectual categories produced
by non-Jews, as Hughes claims, but quite the opposite; he seeks to vanquish non-Jewish wise
men, in part by utilizing their own wisdom against them, but in part by utilizing his inherited
wisdom. He is utilizing these variant forms of wisdom as tools of offense, and not as tools of
defense, i.e., he is not ultimately interested in defending Judaism, he is interested in debates
of pure knowledge and wisdom. Hughes is correct to note the real sense of tension, and as I
am seeking to show in the case of Leone, this leads to a neutralization of the kabbalistic ele-
ment in the face of universalism, but the maintenance of a superior inherited Jewish wisdom
that speaks to such universalism. I do not detect, however, any sense of inferiority of any
kind.
6  Leone’s affinity to Solomon meshes quite well with Isaac’s own heightened self-perception as
a scion from the line of David. For more on this, including specific references in Isaac’s writ-
ings, see Lawee, Isaac Abarbanel’s Stance Toward Tradition, 9, and 220 fn. 4; and Netanyahu,
Don Isaac Abravanel: Statesman and Philosopher, 3 and 55, and 266 fn. 6.
80 Chapter 4

ma’aseh bereshit, i.e., the act of the beginning, and ma’aseh merkavah, i.e., the
act of the chariot, as based on a long tradition stemming from the Mishnah
which states: “One cannot expound upon the concept of forbidden sexual rela-
tions before three people, or upon the act of the beginning before two, or upon
the chariot before one alone, unless he is wise and understands by way of his
own knowledge.”7 I contend that Leone is playing here with the idea of wis-
dom and “his own knowledge” and understanding as it appears in the original
Mishnah, but that he is turning the secretive element on its head. He can argue
with even the best non-Jewish philosophers precisely because he has an under-
standing of the foundation of the beginning. This is a concept fundamentally
related to ma’aseh merkavah, which for Leone, as we will see in chapter eight, is
the secret of the hylomorphic composition of divine form and Chaos.
In regard to the wisdom of the foundation of the beginning, some of Leone’s
knowledge indeed seems to be “an inheritance of the father” as he states in
the above cited Hebrew poem. In fact, he seems to have been influenced by
his father’s reading of Nahmanides on the first verse of Genesis. Returning to
the Dialoghi, Leone’s protagonist Filone states regarding the first word of the
Bible: “Where we say in the beginning the ancient Chaldean interpretation
said ‘with Wisdom God created the heaven and the earth,’ because ‘Wisdom’
in Hebrew is called ‘the Beginning,’ as Solomon says, the beginning is wisdom;8
and for the word ‘in’ we can say ‘with.’ ”9 This statement is almost identical to
Isaac Abravanel’s quotation of Nahmanides in his Mif’alot Elohim, and then
again in his commentary on Genesis, that “the word Bereshit hints at Hokhmah,
and thus the Targum Yerushalmi translates it as B’Hukhmta, and the word is
crowned with the crown of Bet.”10 Leone’s in the beginning is parallel to Bereshit
in Isaac’s citation of Nahmanides, “the ancient Chaldean interpretation” is par-
allel to “the Targum Yerushalmi,” “with Wisdom” is parallel to “B’Hukhmta,”
and Leone’s “word ‘in’ ” is parallel to the Nahmanidean “crown of Bet.” It is thus

7  Hagigah 2:1: ,‫ ולא במרכבה ביחיד‬,‫ ולא במעשה בראשית בשנים‬,‫אין דורשין בעריות בשלשה‬
.‫אלא אם כן היה חכם ומבין מדעתו‬
8  Proverbs 9:10; Psalm 111:10.
9  Leone Ebreo, Dialogues of Love, translated by Cosmos Damian Bacich and Rossella
Pescatori with introduction and notes by Rossella Pescatori (Toronto, Buffalo and London:
University of Toronto Press, 2009), 325; Leone Ebreo (Iehudah Abrabanel), Dialoghi
d’amore, a cura di Giacinto Manuppella, vol. 1 (Lisboa: Instituto Nacional de Investigação
científica, 1983), 302: L’antica interpretazione caldea disse, onde noi diciamo in prin-
cipio, “con sapienzia creò Dio il cielo e la terra;” e perché la sapienzia si dice in ebraica
principio (come disse Salamone), principio è sapienzia, e la dizione in può dire cum.
10  See Abravanel, Mif’alot, 58 and Commentary on Genesis, 5, discussed in chapter
three above.
On the Wisdom of Beauty 81

reasonable to assume that Isaac’s citation of Nahmanides may very well have
been Leone’s source. Yet unlike his father, Leone makes absolutely no mention
of Nahmanides, he makes no reference to Kabbalah here, and he does not take
his discussion in the direction of the sefirot.
Like his father Isaac and the rest of his older contemporaries discussed
here, Leone indeed has recourse to the classical pairing of “the beginning”
with Wisdom; but unlike all of them, he seems to have completely neutralized
the kabbalistic elements involved in the discussion. This neutralization comes
not only by way of his seemingly deliberate failure to mention Nahmanides,
Kabbalah or the Kabbalists, or sefirotic theosophy, it is further attested to by
his discussion of the preposition “in” of “in the beginning.” For Isaac, as we
have seen in the Nahmanidean passage that he quotes, this preposition is “the
crown of Bet” that crowns Hokhmah and that therefore takes on a hypostatic
character. For Pico, as we have seen, the bet is the hypostasis of God as infused
in the beginning, the middle, and the end. For Alemanno, as we have seen,
this hypostatic bet very intricately relates to the “house” of the All and to Keter.
Finally, for all of the above thinkers, the bet of Bereshit as the second letter
of the Hebrew alphabet represents the second sefirah, Hokhmah. For all of
Leone’s older contemporaries, then, the bet of Bereshit takes on a distinctly
theosophical character. This is not the case for Leone, for whom the bet is
simply transformed from the preposition “in” into the preposition “with.”
Unlike his older contemporaries, Leone seems to be mitigating all kabbalisti-
cally hypostatic connotations. Thus, even though he seems to be basing him-
self on his father’s quotation of Nahmanides in this specific instance, in place
of “the word is crowned with the crown of Bet,” he writes that “for the word ‘in’
we can say ‘with.’ ” In so doing, he subtly turns the kabbalistic hypostatization
of bet into a simple matter of linguistics.
Nevertheless, Filone’s discourse on Bereshit as “Wisdom” is neither simple
nor a matter of mere prepositional linguistics. In extension and explanation of
the above, transformed version of the Nahmanidean take on the first word
of the Bible, Filone states:

See how the first thing shows that the world was created via Wisdom, and
that Wisdom was the first creative principle, but that the supreme cre-
ator God, by means of His supreme Wisdom, the first Beauty, created and
made beautiful the whole created universe. In this way the first words of
the wise Moses denoted the three degrees of the Beautiful: God, Wisdom,
and World. And the extremely wise King Solomon, as a follower and dis-
ciple of the divine Moses, declares this his first decree in his Proverbs,
saying: The Lord by wisdom founded the earth; He established the heavens
82 Chapter 4

with supreme knowledge. By His intellect the depths were broken up, and the
heavens drop down the dew (Proverbs 3:19–20). Therefore he instructs, say-
ing: My son, let not them depart from your eyes: see and observe the highest
contemplations, which will be the life of your soul, etc. (Proverbs 4:20–23).
This matter could not be written more clearly.11

While the question of just how clearly the matter is written may be up for
debate, with some unpacking, this passage may indeed help to clarify Leone’s
purpose in invoking Wisdom in relation to creation. The first point to note is
that the phrase that I have translated as “first creative principle” in relation
to Wisdom, i.e., il primo principio creante, can also signify “the first creative
beginning.” This seems to be significant, given the context of the discussion of
Wisdom in relation to Bereshit. Herein seems to lie a further assertion of the
isomorphic relation, and an exegesis on the first word of the Torah that brings
it into the realm not of the sefirot, but of philosophical sapienzia.
The second point to note is that the phrase that I have translated as “via
Wisdom,” i.e., per sapienzia, denotes instrumentality in relation to Wisdom.
This is in line with the previously quoted, transformed Nahmanidean pas-
sage, in which Leone translates the Chaldean B’Hukhmta as con sapienzia, i.e.,
“with Wisdom.” It is also supported here by the prooftext from Proverbs 3:19,
in which Leone renders “by wisdom” here too as con sapienzia. In all of these
cases, Wisdom is not synonymous with the supreme creator God, nor is it one
of His parts; rather, it is an intermediary between Him and His creation. Filone
makes this sense of instrumentality even more explicit, continuing: “Our first
teachers speak with great precision on such matters, and do not say that ‘God,
being wise, created,’ or ‘wisely created,’ but ‘God with wisdom,’ to show that
God is the highest creator and wisdom is the means and instrument through

11  See Dialogues, 325–326. My translation here is slightly different, as based on Dialoghi,
302–303: Mira come [per] la prima cosa ne mostra che ‘l mondo fu creato per sapienzia e
che la sapienzia fu il primo principio creante, ma che ‘l sommo Dio creatore mediante la
sua somma sapienzia, prima bellezza, creò e fece (303) bello tutto l’universo creato, sì che
li primi vocabuli del sapiente Moisè ne denotarono li tre gradi del Bello: Dio, Sapienzia
e Mondo. E il sapientissimo re Salamone, come seguace e discepulo del divino Moisè,
dichiara questa sua prima sentenzia ne li Proverbi dicendo: “Il Signor con sapienzia fondò
la terra, compose li cieli con somma scienzia, col suo intelletto l’abissi furno rotti e li
cieli stillano la rosata.” Onde egli dottrina dicendo: “Figliuolo mio, non le levare dinanzi
a l’occhi tuoi: vedi e guarda le somme cogitazioni, le quali saranno vita de l’anima tua,”
&c. Non si potria già questa cosa scrivere più chiara.
On the Wisdom of Beauty 83

which the creation happened.”12 He goes on to offer a prooftext concerning the

idea of instrumentality, from the book of Psalms: By the Word of the Lord the
heavens were made, and all of their hosts by the breath of His mouth.13 As we
should recall, this is the very same verse from psalms invoked by Alemanno to
denote the emanatory process of creation as an imperfect simulacrum that is
necessarily separated from, yet related to the true nature of God. In a remark-
ably similar manner, Leone’s Filone explains the verse from Psalms: “The Word
is wisdom, and is like the breath that goes out from the mouth; in this manner,
wisdom emanates from the first wise Being, and wisdom and the wise are not
one and the same, as Aristotle maintains.”14 For Leone, as for Alemanno, there
is a conjoined separation between the first Wise-one and the first Wisdom.
The two are distinct, yet without the former, the latter could not exist, while
without the latter, the former could not create.
Despite such an explicit statement of instrumentality, wisdom seems to
extend for Leone beyond the initial process of creation and into the realm of
intention. Indeed, per sapienzia, translated above as “via Wisdom,” can also
be taken as a prepositional phrase of purpose, denoting that the world was
created for the sake of Wisdom. In this case, Wisdom is not the means, but is
the ends of creation. As Leone’s Sofia later states, “since the universe . . . is pro-
duced in the image and likeness of the highest Wisdom, its perfection consists
in being the simulacrum of that wisdom, which is the proper purpose of its
creator.”15 Like Alemanno’s theory of writing in relation to speech, which itself
is held in relation to thought, for Sofia, the universe is a mere artificial repre-
sentation of supreme Wisdom, which itself is already outside of the Wise one,
who is the supreme Creator. As João Vila-Chã has noted, “for Leone Ebreo the
world of creation is nothing but a simulacro of the divine reality. At the same
time, however, that simulacro must be considered as totally and absolutely

12  Dialogues, 326; Dialoghi, 303: I nostril primi ne le cose simili parlano precisamente; e non
dicono: “Dio sapiente creò,” o vero “saviamente creò,” ma disseno: “Dio con sapienzia,” per
mostrare che Dio è il sommo creatore e la sapienzia è mezzo e instrumento col quale fu la
creazione.
13  Psalm 33:6.
14  Dialogues, 326. The translation here is slightly modified, based on Dialoghi, 303: il Verbo
è la sapienzia, e somiglia al spirit che esce de la bocca, ché così la sapienzia emana dal
primo Sapiente, e non sono ambi una cosa medesima, come pone Aristotile.
15  Dialogues, 342; Dialoghi, 319: . . . essendo l’universo . . . prodotto a immagine e similitudine
de la somma Sapienzia, la sua perfezione consiste in essere propriamente simulacro di
quella, il quale è il proprio fine del suo producente.
84 Chapter 4

inadequate in relation to the reality it represents.”16 This indeed has deep reso-
nance with Alemanno’s theory of speech, which, as we have seen, is also an
inadequate representation related to divine Wisdom.
As with Alemanno’s theory of language, within Leone’s schema, the Creator’s
entire purpose in bringing about creation is for the latter to emulate Wisdom.
This is like a craftsman whose purpose is to make a craft in order to externalize
it from his mind while simultaneously having it be as similar as possible to that
which he has in mind. “This is the true purpose of the craftsman in making his
object,” says Sofia, “and so it must be in the created universe.”17 Or as Alemanno
would formulate the idea, the purpose of writing is to emulate outer speech
as closely as possible, which in itself is a mere emanation of inner speech, or
the thoughts of the speaker. For Leone, Wisdom as Logos replaces Alemanno’s
structure of language, and his Filone concedes to Sofia that universal wisdom,
which is in the likeness of supreme Wisdom, is indeed the first purpose of the
supreme Creator in His creation.
But he says that universal wisdom as an imperfect simulacrum of supreme
Wisdom is not the final purpose of creation. Rather, the final purpose is the
complete and total return of creation to the Creator as achieved through
the related process of intellection. The difference seems to be that universal
wisdom is a passive state that connects the universe to supreme Wisdom in an
imperfect manner, as its creation. Intellection, by contrast, is an active func-
tion that returns the intellectual soul to its supreme Creator. Filone explains:

In this consists not only the beatitude of the intellect, transformed and
united with the Godhead, but also the ultimate perfection and happiness
of the whole created universe of which the intellect is the principal and
most essential part. And through the intellect alone the whole of the uni-
verse is made worthy of union with its lofty beginning, and of achieving
perfection and lasting beatitude in enjoyment of its divine union.18

Reminiscent of Pico’s Proclean framing of the beginning, middle and end of

creation, for Leone Wisdom as beginning relates to the processio, the intellect

16  João Vila-Chã, Amor Intellectualis? Leone Ebreo ( Judah Abravanel) and the Intelligibility
of Love (dissertation, Boston College, 1999), 795.
17  Ibid.
18  Dialogues, 345; Dialoghi 322: . . . nel qual consiste non solamente la beatitudine de
l’intelletto transformato e unito in lei e fatto divino, ma ancora l’ultima perfezione e felic-
ità di tutto l’universo creato, del quale esso intelletto è la parte principale e più essenziale;
mediante la quale il tutto di esso universe è degno unirsi col suo sommo principio e farsi
perfetto e bearsi ne la fruizione de la sua divina unione.
On the Wisdom of Beauty 85

as “the principal and most essential part” relates to the reversio, and the entire
process seems to have (re)unio as its ultimate goal and final purpose.19 While
the simulatory nature of descending Wisdom necessarily leads from perfec-
tion to imperfection in the processio of creation, acts of intellection, and espe-
cially those that have the divine as their object, constitute a move of reversio
by which the universe achieves perfection and can return to its end, which is
actually its sommo principio, i.e., its lofty beginning.
The special status of Wisdom as the lofty beginning that is at once distinct
from both God and from creation but that acts as the conduit for processio
and reversio is masterfully tied back to the biblical tradition by Leone through
an appeal to the book of Proverbs. Traditionally ascribed to the wise King
Solomon, the book of Proverbs significantly personifies Wisdom itself as a ven-
erable woman.20 Filone quotes from the Proverbial voice of Wisdom, at length:

The Lord produced me in the beginning of His way, prior to His works,
from beforehand; from eternity I was exalted as the head of all that was
prior to the earth, before there were depths; I was produced before there
were the exuberant sources of water, before the mountains and valleys,
and before all of the dust of the earth. When He composed the heavens,
I was there; and when He marked the boundary upon the face of the
abyss, when He placed the site of the sea, and decreed that the waters
should not pass His commandment, and when He assigned the bound-
ary of the foundations of the earth: I was then near Him as an artifice, or
rather, as art, practicing beautiful and pleasant artifices, every day play-
ing in His presence, and every hour playing in the world and in His earth,
and my delights are with the sons of men. Therefore, my children, listen
to me and obey my commands. (Proverbs 8:22–32).21

19  On Pico, see the discussion in chapter two above. It is important to note that just as we see
here for Leone, for Pico too, felicitas is a key element in his conceptualization of union.
For more on that concept in Pico, see Black, Pico’s Heptaplus, 177–213.
20  For more on the biblical personification of Wisdom, especially as the ground for the early
modern Spanish culture of wisdom literature, of which Leone was a part, see Emily C.
Francomano, Wisdom and Her Lovers in Medieval and Early Modern Hispanic Literature
(New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2008), 19–23.
21  This is my translation, as based on Dialoghi, 303–304: Il Signor mi produsse in principio
de la via sua, innanzi de l’opere sue, ab antico; ab eterno fui esaltata pel capo de le mag-
giori antichità de la terra, prima che fussero l’abissi; io fui prodotta innanzi che fussero
l’esuberanti origini de l’acqua, innanzi de li monti e valli e [di] tutte le polveri del mondo.
Quando compose li cieli, ivi era io; e quando segnalò il termine sopra le faccie de l’abisso,
quando pose il sito al mare e [a] l’acque che non passassero il suo commando, e quando
assegnò il termine a li fondamenti de la terra, io allora era appresso di lui artifizio o
86 Chapter 4

The language of “beginning” in relation to Wisdom as provided by this passage

is significant. So is the seemingly deliberate translation from the Hebrew reshit
darko by Leone, with the otherwise absent preposition, as “in principio de la
via sua,” i.e., “in the beginning of his way.” As we have seen, this preposition
is significant for Leone in conveying the duality of the beginning as tempo-
rally “in” and instrumentally “with.” It is also significant here in explicitly tying
Wisdom back to the very first word of the Bible. Filone explains these various
connections: “The way of God is the creation of the world and the supreme
wisdom is the beginning, or principle, of this, by means of which the world
was created, declaring as wisdom the saying of Moses: In the beginning (or:
In principle) God created.”22 Here the idea of reshit as Hokhmah comes back
into the picture, and the isomorphism is again explicitly stated. But here again,
Leone seems to also be playing with the Italian word principio; Wisdom is the
beginning of God’s way, which is the creation of the world, but Wisdom is also
the “principle” by means of which God created the world.
Wisdom as God’s principle of creation is significantly cast here as an “arti-
fizio o vero arte,” i.e., as an artifice, or rather, as art. This seems to be a measured
(mis)translation of the Hebrew term amon of Proverbs 8:30, which is variously
rendered as “confidant” or as “nursling.”23 Though not specified, Leone’s render-
ing here seems to be based on Bereshit Rabbah, which, as we should remember,
also very subtly yet importantly enters into the discussion of his father Isaac.
For Isaac, the question is the role of Torah in creation, and precisely how it
is that Torah can relate to and enter into the creation that it created. As we
should recall, the passage from Bereshit Rabbah that importantly stands in the
shadows of Isaac’s citation of the Zohar and that here importantly stands in
the shadows of Leone’s translation of Proverbs 8 replaces Proverbial Wisdom
with the Torah. We should revisit the passage from Bereshit Rabbah to provide
context for Leone’s tenor:

Another way [of reading] amon, i.e., ‘confidant’ or ‘nursling,’ is as oman,

i.e., artisan. The Torah says: I was the artistic tool of the Holy One, blessed

vero arte, esercitandomi in belli e dilettevoli artifizi, ogni dì giocando in presenzia sua,
d’ogni ora giocante nel mondo e nel terreno suo e le delizie mie con li figli degli uomini.
Onde, figliuoli miei, oditemi e guardate li miei precetti. For an alternate translation, see
Dialogues, 326–327.
22  Dialoghi, 304: . . . la via di Dio è la creazione del mondo e la somma sapienzia è il principio
de quella, col quale il mondo fu creato; dichiarando per la sapienzia il detto di Moisè: “In
principio creauit Deus,” &c.
23  See, for example, The Jewish Study Bible, ed. Adele Berlin and Mark Zvi Brettler (New York:
Oxford University Press, 2004), 1462.
On the Wisdom of Beauty 87

is He. As is the practice within the world, when a king of flesh and blood
builds a palace, he does not build it from his own knowledge, but from
the knowledge of an artisan (or: architect). And the architect does not
build it from his own knowledge, but rather, he has plans and diagrams
that help him know how to make the rooms and how to make the narrow
gates. In this manner, the Holy One, blessed is He, looked at the Torah
and created the world. And the Torah said: In the beginning God created
(Genesis 1:1), and there is no beginning but the Torah, as it is said: the Lord
made me the beginning of His way (Proverbs 8:22).24

Indeed, the interpretation here is strikingly similar to Leone’s understanding,

as displayed above, of Wisdom as art in the mind of God. The similarity is fur-
ther drawn out by Filone’s additional assertion regarding Wisdom, that the
passage from Proverbs “calls it (like Plato) art or artifice, or rather, the supreme
Craftsman, because it is the art or artifice by which the entire universe was
artificed by God.”25 The connection is even further buttressed by an earlier
­­passage in which Filone states that eternal forms in the divine intellect “are the
prototypes of all created things, and they pre-exist in the divine intellect in the
same way that the prototypes of artistic types of things pre-exist in the mind of
the artisan; these are the same as Art (and only these types Plato calls Ideas).”26
The non-mention by Leone not only of Bereshit Rabbah but also of Torah,
both in the above quote regarding artistic prototypes and in his above rendition
of Proverbs, seems rather significant. Here again we can sense the universal-
ization process. The “Torah” of Bereshit Rabbah, which was also significant for
Leone’s father Isaac in relation to the creation of the world, becomes sidelined.

Bereshit Rabbah 1:1: ‫ד״א אמון אומן התורה אומרת אני הייתי כלי אומנתו של הקב״ה בנוהג‬
24  
‫שבעולם מלך בשר ודם בונה פלטין אינו בונה אותה מדעת עצמו אלא מדעת אומן והאומן‬
‫אינו בונה אותה מדעת עצמו אלא דיפתראות ופינקסאות יש לו לדעת היאך הוא עושה חדרים‬
‫היאך הוא עושה פשפשין כך היה הקב״ה מביט בתורה ובורא את העולם והתורה אמרה‬
‫בראשית ברא אלהים ואין ראשית אלא תורה היאך מה דאת אמר (משלי ח) ה׳ קנני ראשית‬
‫דרכו‬.
25  
Dialoghi, 304: . . . la chiama (come Platone) arte o artifizio o vero sommo Opifice, però che
essa è l’arte o l’artifizio con che tutto l’universo fu da Dio artifiziato.”
26  
Dialoghi, 155: . . . quali sono esemplari di tutte le cose create, e preesisteno nell’intelletto
divino al modo che preesisteno le spezie esemplari de le cose artificiate ne la mente de
l’artefice, quali son la medesima arte (e queste spezie sole chiama Platone Idee). For more
on the standard Platonic concept of Ideas as the blueprint in the mind of the divine archi-
tect, especially as hashed out in the thought of Leone’s older contemporary David Messer
Leon in relation to the sefirot, see Hava Tirosh-Rothschild, “Sefirot as the Essence of God
in the Writings of David Messer Leon,” AJS Review 7 (1982): 422; idem, Between Worlds: The
Life and Thought of Rabbi David ben Judah Messer Leon (Albany: SUNY Press, 1991), 215.
88 Chapter 4

Instead, it is the more universalized “Wisdom” of Proverbs that takes center

stage. Nevertheless, the notion of “the artistic tool of the Holy One, blessed is
He” remains, as does the idea of this artistic tool as the necessary beginning of
God’s artificed universe.
It is important to note that Leone’s rendition of Wisdom as artifice seems to
have a double sense, and it is for this reason that I have deliberately translated
the term “artifizio” as “artifice” and the term “artifiziato” as the awkward English
participle “artificed.” The first sense has to do with artistry and the beauty of
creation as craft. God externalizes the universe through Wisdom like an artist
or artisan externalizes his or her abilities through the tools of his or her trade.
In this case, the beauty found without conveys and reflects the beautiful ideal
concealed within. Artifice here can be understood in the sense of artistic inge-
nuity. The second sense of “artifizio” seems to have to do with “artificiality” in
relation to the creation of the universe. The universe is a mere simulacrum
of the real sense of supreme Wisdom or Beauty, which itself is a mere reflec-
tion of the Wise or the Beautiful concealed within God. In this case, “artifice”
implies unfaithful pretense, not in the sense of a deliberate ruse, but in the
sense of the inevitable yet necessary mispresentation of all representation: To
be represented by and in one’s creation is not to be truly present; but not to be
represented at all is to be completely absent, without even a hint of presence.
The artifice as the creator of the artificial is thus necessary as a sign pointing
beyond itself to the truly transcendent presence that is God.
Leone reflects this idea of artifice or art, as related to the artificial, in a rather
Aristotelian notion of abstraction that itself reflects the incorporeal through
the very metaphor of reflection. He writes regarding the abstraction of intel-
lectual essences from corporeal substances:

This is like seeing the shining body of the sun in water or in any other
diaphanous body, since weak sight cannot directly see it as it is in itself. In
the same way, our human intellect sees the incorporeal in the corporeal,
and even though it well knows the first cause to be measureless and infi-
nite, it knows it through its effect, which is the corporeal universe. Thus,
the Master is known by His work, and He is not known by direct percep-
tion of Him in Himself, seeing His own mind and art.27

27  My translation is slightly modified from Dialogues, 260, as based on Dialoghi, 235–236:
Ma questo è come vedere il lucido corpo del sole in acqua o in altro diafano, perché la
debil vista nol può vedere de diretto in se stesso: ché così il nostro intelletto umano ne
le corporee vede l’incorporee, e se ben conosce che la prima causa è immensa e infinita,
la conosce per l’effetto suo, che è l’universo corporeo, e per l’opra conosce il maestro; non
che ‘l conosca direttamente per se stesso vedendo la sua propria mente e arte. See also
On the Wisdom of Beauty 89

Creation is a work (of art) that allows for an understanding, albeit finite, of the
infinite art of which it is a work. It is only through this art that God’s “work” of
creation comes about; conversely, it is only through the work that the art can be
known, and only through the art that the Master can be known. Like the water
that reflects the sun, creation limits the limitless so that it can be apprehended,
even if it cannot be fully comprehended due to its full incomprehensibility.
Aside from the connection to artifice and the artificial, which we have been
discussing, Leone’s precise use of the term “art” in connection to “mind” here
seems significant. Indeed, Leone seems to be linking God’s Beauty (related to
art) to His Wisdom (related to mind). For Leone, the two become synonymous.
Yet the Wisdom-Beauty pair is not synonymous with God, i.e., it is not, as he
writes, “Him in Himself,” but it is “His own.” This is a subtle yet important dis-
tinction. As Leone’s Filone later explains, “this supreme Wisdom emanates
from and is produced from the supreme God, and they are not one and the
same, as Aristotle maintains.”28 Here Leone seems to be attacking the per-
ceived Aristotelian notion that nous is synonymous with God.29 For Leone,
nous and the divine are distinct entities that enter into a relationship in order
to create. Nous, or Wisdom, comes out of, or emanates from God and becomes
separate from Him, and it is only in such a manner that it can act as the prover-
bial beginning of His way.
But as the beginning of His way, Wisdom, too, has its own beginning in that
very emanatory process, which itself begins in God. There is thus a hidden
beginning that begins the revealed beginning. Leone’s Filone further elabo-
rates on his critique of Aristotle by appealing to that hidden realm and to the
notion of a dual beginning in the Beautiful and in Beauty:

Aristotle, whose view into abstract things was somewhat more short-
sighted, not having the testimony of our ancient theologians as Plato did,
denied that hidden territory that he could not see. He attained supreme
wisdom, first beauty, which satiated his intellect, and without seeing any-
thing else, he affirmed that this was the first incorporeal beginning of all
things. But Plato, having learned from the elders in Egypt, could sense

Aaron Hughes, The Art of Dialogue in Jewish Philosophy (Bloomington: Indiana University
Press, 2007), 112.
28  Dialoghi, 304: . . . quella somma sapienzia emana ed è prodotta dal sommo Dio, e non
sono una medesima cosa, come vuole Aristotile.
29  For more on this, see R. Michael Olson, “Aristotle on God: Divine Nous as Unmoved
Mover,” in Models of God and Alternative Ultimate Realities (New York: Springer, 2013):
101–110; Stephen Menn, “Aristotle and Plato on God as Nous and as the Good,” The Review
of Metaphysics vol. 45, no. 3 (March 1992), 543–573.
90 Chapter 4

other things beyond, even if he was not able to see the hidden beginning
of supreme wisdom or first beauty; and he made the latter into the sec-
ond beginning of the universe, dependent on the supreme God, the first
beginning of all things.30

According to Filone, through the process of intellection, Aristotle indeed

“attained supreme wisdom,” and thus, according to Leone’s own schema, the
latter did achieve a sense reversio. Nevertheless, since he was not informed by
the “ancient theologians,” as was his teacher Plato, he was limited and could
not attain true unio. Precisely who Leone intended by the “ancient theolo-
gians” who Plato purportedly encountered in Egypt is a complex matter, which
would take us too far afield and thus need not occupy us here.31 What is impor-
tant for our purposes is the fact that Filone designates them as “our ancient
theologians,”32 thereby tying them back to the Jewish tradition.
What Leone seems to be saying here is that there is a limit to the intellect
when it comes to an understanding of the beginning. The intellect can per-
haps understand the beginning, but it cannot understand the beginning of the
beginning. A foray into that hidden realm of the beginning of the beginning
depends upon revelation from God Himself, as manifest in the Jewish theo-
logical tradition. In a reversal of previous trends, here the universal meets the
particular in a manner in which the only way to the truly hidden Universal
beyond the manifest universal is through the particular. Plato’s thought pro-
vides access to that hidden layer, which is the beginning of all things, but only
because it can be linked directly back to the manifest beginning that is the
Wisdom of the bible, which points beyond itself to the hidden beginning.

30  The translation here is mine, from Dialoghi, 302: Aristotile, la cui vista ne le cose astratte fu
alquanto più corta, non avendo la mostrazione de li nostri teologi antichi come Platone,
negò quello ascoso che non ha possuto vedere, e gionse a la somma sapienzia, prima
bellezza, de la quale il suo intelletto saziato, senza vedere più oltre, affermò che quella
fusse il primo principio incorporeo di tutte le cose. Ma Platone, avendo da li vecchi in
Egitto imparato, poté più oltre sentire, se ben non valse a vedere l’ascoso principio de la
somma sapienzia o prima bellezza, e fece quella secondo principio de l’universo, depen-
dente dal sommo Dio, primo principio di tutte le cose. For an alternate translation, see
Dialogues, 325.
31  The obscure mention by Leone is tied to prisca theologia, which in turn is connected to
subsequent interpretations of Hermetism and Kabbalah. I plan to revisit this important
topic in a different context. For the time being, see Moshe Idel, “Kabbalah and Ancient
Philosophy,” 79–80; Giuseppe Veltri, Renaissance Philosophy in Jewish Garb: Foundations
and Challenges in Judaism on the Eve of Modernity (Leiden and Boston: Brill, 2009), 64–68.
32  For more on the significance of the possessive “our” throughout the Dialoghi as a Jewish
designation, see Veltri, Renaissance Philosophy in Jewish Garb, 64.
On the Wisdom of Beauty 91

The paradox of revelation does not stop with the universal-particular

d­ ialectic, but extends into the realm of the ontological. This has to do with
the fact that, just as for both Alemanno and for Isaac Abravanel, for Leone,
revelation and creation are ultimately two sides of the same coin; as such,
the revelation of the hidden beginning necessarily comes through the mani-
fest beginning of God’s way. Revelation through creation is mediated, whether
the mediation is cast particularly as Torah or universally as Wisdom-Beauty. In
this way, Leone’s notion of the imperfect revelation in creation of the hidden
Beautiful through manifest Beauty is parallel to the theory of speech and reve-
lation as brought forth by Alemanno, and to the theory of bodies as drawn from
the Zoharic tradition and from Pirkei d’Rabbi Eliezer and brought forth by Isaac
Abravanel. Yet rather than speech as ultimately manifest in writing, or bodies
as finally revealed through garments, for Leone, the medium of Wisdom is lik-
ened to supernal Beauty, which reflects itself in earthly beauty. God’s mediated
revelation comes about in the exact same way that the procession of His work
of creation comes through His art.
Leone’s theory of art and the creation of the simulacrum not only paral-
lels his father’s usage of the concept of garments and Alemanno’s model of
language, it also has deep resonance with both of these thinkers’ understand-
ings of Platonic Forms as cast in the language of artistic depiction. In regard to
Isaac, we recall that he equates the Forms to the sefirot, and in a similar man-
ner to Leone’s art that produces the work of art that is creation, he maintains
that the sefirot are “divine depictions, through which the world was created.”33
Although Leone does not enter into the realm of the sefirot, it is certainly not
unreasonable to assume a shared understanding here between father and son
of artistic depiction as related to both form and to production. In regard to
Alemanno, the discussion comes not by way of an understanding of creation,
in contrast to both Leone and Isaac, but by way of an understanding of pro-
phetic revelation through the imaginative faculty. Alemanno writes:

The imagination imagines accurate images taken from subtle spiritual

forms and separate essences; it imagines them materialized according to
their truth, as a man would imagine a sentient being and would imitate
it on a wall, as if it were living, or would draw it on a simple surface and
would imitate it as if it were protruding, for this is the imagery according
to its truth. In this way, the prophets imagined the subtle spiritual forms
which are separate essences, by way of an imagery that imitates the sepa-
rate Forms . . . These are imitations that imitate the separate Forms in the

33  Abravanel, Questions of the wise and honorable Saul Ha-Kohen, 12d: ‫הם ציורי' אלהיים‬
.‫שבהם נברא העולם‬
92 Chapter 4

imagination, which is set straight by this imitation, which is as close to

the imitated as possible. This is like a painter who imitates an animal as
much as is possible according to his craft, and when it has greater resem-
blance, then his craft is more perfect; and this is called ‘Perspective.’34

The usage of aesthetic expression here, coupled with the explicit language of
“imitations,” which are essentially simulacra, is certainly suggestive of com-
mon sources or of an affinity of thought at the very least, if not a possible direct
influence. The resemblance, if I may, does not seem to be merely artificed or
imagined.
Nevertheless, we should exercise extreme care in terms of how far we push
the correspondence. In fact, due to the central position of the sefirah of Tiferet
within Alemanno’s thought, some scholars have noted this precise aesthetic
connection, but have unduly taken it a step further and have postulated kab-
balistic influence upon Leone’s hypostatic Beauty.35 This is despite the fact that
there is no clear textual or phenomenal support for such an argument, as there
is for the connection between the kabbalistic understanding of Hokhmah and
Leone’s Wisdom. As such, we must be careful not to impose a veritable false
cognate between Leone’s metaphysics of Beauty and kabbalistic theosophy.
Just because Tiferet literally means “beauty” does not hyper-literally mean that
Leone’s hypostatic Beauty is the same as, or even related to, the sixth sefirah
within the kabbalistic schema of hypostatization.36

34  The translation is mine, from the critical edition of Lesley, The Song of Solomon’s Ascents,
578: ‫ההיישרה הששית היא המדמה אשר ידמה דמיונות צודקות לקוחות מצורות רוחניות‬
‫דקות ועצמים נבדלים ידמה אותם מוגשמים על אמתתם כמו שידמה אדם חי מרגיש ויחקה‬
‫ או יצייר אותו על שטח פשוט ויחקהו כאלו הוא בולט כי זהו דמוי‬.‫אותו על קיר כאלו הוא חי‬
‫על אמתתו אשר כזה ידמו הנביאים הצורות הדקות הרוחניות שהם עצמים נבדלים בדמוי‬
‫ הם חקויים מחקים הצורות הנבדלות בדמיון המיושר בזה‬. . . ‫מחקה אותם הצורות הנבדלות‬
‫חקוי קרוב אל המחוקה כפי האפשר כמו שיחקה המצייר ב"ח כפי האפשר לפי מלאכתו‬
.‫וכאשר הוא יותר דומה הנה המלאכה ההיא יותר שלמה והיא הנקראת פרוספיטיווה‬
35  Pescatori, (Leone Ebreo) Dialogues of Love, 385, fn. 80, as based on Aaron W. Hughes,
“Transforming the Maimonidean Imagination: Aesthetics in the Renaissance Thought
of Judah Abravanel,” Harvard Theological Review 97:4 (2004): 469–470. Angela Guidi
also notes Alemanno’s use of Tiferet in relation to devekut, and places it in the context
of her discussion on Leone Ebreo. See Guidi, Amour et Sagesse, 288–289. For more on
Alemanno’s use of Tiferet, specifically, see Lesley, The Song of Solomon’s Ascents, 218–219.
36  In a similar vein, Andrew Gluck has stated: “I would conjecture that the association
between beauty and love, which is obviously so important to Judah Abrabanel, comes
not so much out of his Jewish heritage as from Renaissance thought” (Judah Abrabanel’s
Philosophy of Love and Kabbalah, 602). I assume that Gluck’s conjecture is based on the
idea that the concept is in the nature of Renaissance Platonism, and as João Vila-Chã
On the Wisdom of Beauty 93

In fact, the evidence would seem to steer us away from such association.
First, in the sefirotic system, Tiferet is an entirely separate hypostasis from
Hokhmah. In Leone’s thought, by contrast, Beauty and Wisdom are synony-
mous. Second, in the sefirotic schema, Tiferet falls in the center as the sixth,
unifying hypostasis. In Leone’s formulation, as we have seen, Wisdom-Beauty
plays the role of the second emanated beginning as the wisdom and beauty
of the first Wise and Beautiful God. Finally, in sefirotic Kabbalah, Tiferet typi-
cally represents the divine male, who connects to his divine female counter-
part through the divine phallus of Yesod. The male is the active giver while the
female is the passive receiver. In Leone’s system, by contrast, supreme Beauty
represents the extra-divine female who is at once connected to the divine male,
the supremely Beautiful, through the medium of love. She is the lover while the
supremely Beautiful is the beloved, and while she does receive formal perfec-
tion from Him, her role in the relationship is most blatantly quite active.
Filone explains this loving relationship that gives birth to the created
universe:

You know that Solomon and the other theologians who follow Moses
maintain that the world was produced as the son of the supremely
Beautiful as the father, and of the highest Wisdom or true Beauty as the
mother. And they say that [by way of] the highest Wisdom being in love
with the supremely Beautiful, as a female for a very perfect male, and the
supremely Beautiful returning this love to her, she becomes pregnant by
the highest power of the supremely Beautiful and gives birth to the beau-
tiful universe, their son, with all its parts.37

has adeptly shown, the origin of the connection between love and beauty indeed seems
to be Proclus. See João Vila-Chã, Amor Intellectualis? 19–20. Shlomo Pines has argued
that while fitting nicely with Renaissance sensibilities, Leone’s ideas of beauty may have
actually had their origin in medieval Arabic thought. See Pines, “Medieval Doctrines in
Renaissance Garb? Some Jewish and Arabic Sources of Leone Ebreo’s Doctrines,” espe-
cially pages 379–381. For our purposes, it is important to note, as Vila-Chã shows in his
magisterial work, that love and wisdom are fundamentally connected for Leone through
the medium of the intellect.
37  
Dialogues, 328–329, slightly modified; Dialoghi, 306: Sai che Salamone e gli altri teologi
mosaici tengono che ‘l mondo sia prodotto a modo di figlio dal sommo Bello come padre
e da essa somma Sapienzia, vera Bellezza, come di madre; e dicono che la somma sapi-
enzia, inamorata del sommo Bello come femmina del perfettissimo maschio, e il sommo
Bello reciprocando l’amore in lei, essa s’ingravida de la somma potestà del sommo Bello e
parturisce il bello universo, loro figlio, con tutte sue parti.
94 Chapter 4

The love of highest Wisdom, or true Beauty, for the supremely Beautiful acts
as the catalyst for the creation of the universe. In an interesting reversal, the
second in existence is the first in action. Filone goes on to state that in this rela-
tionship of female Beauty and the male Beautiful, “the latter has more reason
to be beloved by her than she by him, in that he is her beginning and producer
and she is produced and lower than him.”38 Wisdom-Beauty is produced and
has a beginning, and even though she is the beginning of the universe, it is only
through her turn in love toward her own beginning in the supremely Beautiful
that a union can form by which the universe can begin to unfold.
But lest we think that the divine male is totally passive, we must remember
that as the Beautiful beloved, he somewhat passive-aggressively induces love
in the lover as she strives for perfection in and through him. Filone explains
that “she becomes perfect in her love for him, and she is no longer barren, but
conceives and brings forth the perfection of the universe; whereas his love for
her is not so that he may acquire perfection, since none can be added unto
him, but that he may acquire her for the universe, generating it as the son of
both of them.”39 Induced love leads to reciprocated love, by which the supernal
mother can become impregnated and give birth to the universe. Within this
process, the mother actively loves, but the father is behind the scenes, putting
that active love into action and actively reciprocating for purposes of repro-
ducing. For Leone, love creates a complex dynamic between different realms
of existence, which, as Sergius Kodera has perspicaciously pointed out, “tem-
porarily erodes the hierarchy of being.”40 As based on an earlier statement that
physical union “allows the actual conversion of each lover into the other,
or rather rendering two into one, removing as far as possible every division
and distinction between them, leaving love in greater unity and perfection,”41

38  Ibid.: . . . egli ha prima e più ragion d’amato in lei, per esser suo principio e producente,
che ella in lui per essere prodotta e inferiore a quello.
39  Ibid.: . . . lei con l’amore di lui si fa perfetta, e leva la sterilità ingravidandosi, e parturisce la
perfezione de l’universo: ma l’amore in lui non è per acquistare perfezione, però che non
se li può aggiugnere, ma per acquistarla a l’universo, generandolo come figlio d’ambidue.
40  Sergius Kodera, “The Idea of Beauty in Leone Ebreo (Judah Abravanel),” in The Jewish
Body: Corporeality, Society, and Identity in the Renaissance and Early Modern Period, ed.
Giuseppe Veltri and Maria Diemling (Leiden and Boston: Brill, 2009), 319. “Temporarily”
is a key term here, for lest we read the Dialoghi anachronistically as a proto-feminist work,
we should keep in mind that for Leone, the divine masculine remains in a superior posi-
tion, even when the roles temporarily get reversed and the feminine is seemingly the
active partner.
41  Dialogues, 64; Dialoghi, 41: La quale ha attuale conversione d’uno amante ne l’altro, o vero
è fare di due uno, removendo la divisione e diversità di quelli quanto è possible, restando
l’amore in maggiore unità e perfezione.
On the Wisdom of Beauty 95

we might say that on the cosmic level, the extra-divine feminine actually
becomes part of the divine masculine, and that the divine masculine also
reciprocally becomes part of the divine feminine. The two become one, and in
so doing, paradoxically produce a third. It is such a manner that they are both
the hidden and manifest beginnings of the created universe.
As we began this chapter, we shall conclude by taking note of the structure
of the Dialoghi. In fact, Leone’s metaphysics of Wisdom and Beauty in rela-
tion to the beginnings of creation are manifestly hidden within that very struc-
ture. As T. Anthony Perry has perceptively observed, “The unifying concept is
that of dialogue, an organ of thought that invites synthesis, while maintaining
opposition, of the work’s main antitheses: . . . body and soul, male and female,
heaven and earth, God and the creation.”42 Similar to the cosmic love of the
Beautiful and of Beauty, the two protagonists Filone and Sofia come together
as one in order to give birth to a new philosophy. And like the Wisdom of
Proverbs or the very idea of a divine father and a cosmic mother, Leone’s dia-
logical recounting of his philosophy is steeped within allegorical personifica-
tion. Indeed, Sofia, whose name literally means “Wisdom,” is a personification
of the very Wisdom that we have been discussing throughout, while Filone is
a personification of Love.43 Interestingly, the supremely Beautiful, who is God
Himself, never makes a personified appearance, and can perhaps be said to
remain hidden behind the scenes. It is perhaps for this reason, too, that Filone
confesses a provoked love and desire in knowing Sofia and thus becoming her
lover, while she plays hard to get with him as his beloved.44 That is, her true
beloved remains hidden and is only manifest in her. Concurrently, through
love of her, one in the earthly realm can transcend to that precise hidden
realm. Personification in part allows this to happen by manifesting Wisdom in
the character of Sofia, just as it is manifested for Moses as the beginning in the
beginning, in the very first word of the Torah.
Emily C. Francomano has recently written: “Recent scholarship suggests
that personification is a master trope, which, while seeking to recover ‘the pure
visibility of truth,’ points to the impossibility of representation and the void
that lies between words and things, representation and reality.”45 For Leone,

42  T. Anthony Perry, Erotic Spirituality: The Integrative Tradition from Leone Ebreo to John
Donne (Tuscaloosa: University of Alabama Press, 1980), 3.
43  Emily C. Francomano has noted that “male personifications in medieval literature are rel-
atively rare, Love and Genius standing as prominent examples” (Wisdom and Her Lovers,
15). In this respect, Leone’s personification of Filone, whose name is from the Greek
Φιλων (Philon), which literally means “Love,” fits precisely into this medieval framework.
44  Dialoghi, 3: Filone: Il conoscerti, o Sofia, causa in me amore e desiderio.
45  Francomano, Wisdom and Her Lovers, 13.
96 Chapter 4

this phenomenon masterfully works into his notion of art and artifice. The
Dialoghi are certainly a work of art that, like God’s creation, only artificially
represents a certain sense of reality. Yet it is only through their artificiality and
artifice as an obscurely personified ‘visibility of truth’ that the persons of the
Dialoghi can convey a meaning that points beyond their appearance to the art
that creates them as a work of art. In this sense, in their very form and struc-
ture, the Dialoghi beautifully parallel creation, which can imperfectly point
beyond itself to its hidden and manifest beginnings only through a recognition
and understanding of its own imperfect beauty.
 PART 2
Tohu Va-Vohu—Astounding and
Substantial Beginnings

∵
 CHAPTER 5

Hylomorphic Time—Yohanan Alemanno on Form,

Matter, and the Days of Creation

As with “the beginning,” Yohanan Alemanno begins his discourse on tohu

and bohu in his Hay ha-‘Olamim, with a passage that focuses on Genesis 1:2.
Alemanno comments upon the temporal verb “was” in the biblical clause stat-
ing that “the earth was tohu and bohu.” Reverting back to the four-fold philo-
sophical meaning of reshit as causal beginning, he writes that the earth “ ‘was’
in a manner that it came to be in existence on account of four beginnings:
tohu; bohu; darkness; and the spirit of God.”1 He does not expand, but just as he
had done with the word reshit, as we discussed in chapter one, he promises to
clarify the matter in his Einei ha-Edah. There, Alemanno cosmogonically treats
the latter two of these beginnings: among various other meanings, “darkness”
represents cosmic privation for Alemanno, and “the spirit of God” represents
the life-giving force of the universe.2 In regard to the first two beginnings, tohu
and bohu, he again turns to kabbalistic hermeneutics, but this time, he relies
upon the following passage from Sefer ha-Bahir:

What is the meaning of “was”? This means that it had already been.
And what is tohu? This is something that astounds people. And what is
bohu? This is something that was formerly tohu and returned to bohu;
it is something that has real substance, as it is written: bo hu, i.e., “there is
­something in it.”3

Here the temporal verb “was” is based on Genesis 1:2, and the version of the
Bahir that Alemanno had before him enigmatically attempts to explain away
the problem by stating that at the beginning, the earth did not begin, because

1 Alemanno, Hay ha-‘Olamim (L’Immortale), 72: ‫היתה באופן שהיא עליה מן המציאות מפני‬
.‫ כאשר יתבאר בעיני העדה‬:'‫ ורוח אלהי‬:‫ וחשך‬:‫ ובוהו‬:‫ והם תוהו‬:‫ התחלותיה שהם ארבעה‬See
there, fn. 261 on p. 109.
2 Ms. Paris BN Heb. 270, 7a.
3 Bahir 1:2: ‫ שהיתה תהו‬,‫ ומאי בהו‬.‫ דבר המתהה בני אדם‬,‫ ומאי תהו‬.‫ שכבר היתה‬,‫מאי משמע היתה‬
.‫ דכתיב בו הוא‬,‫ דבר שיש בו ממש‬,‫וחזרה בהו‬

© koninklijke brill nv, leiden, ���6 | doi ��.��63/9789004330634_007

100 CHAPTER 5

it already was, i.e., “it had already been.”4 Alemanno raises serious temporal
doubt regarding this reading: “If the word ‘was’ indicates the time that was
before the creation, then this necessitates that the earth ‘was’ before it was,
and this turn of events is not possible.” He continues: “And if it indicates a
time that was after it was, then after it was it was not, since tohu and bohu
indicate emptiness and nothing (ha-efes v’ha-ayin) in accord with their saying
[i.e., of the Rabbis]: ‘I will turn the world to tohu and bohu’.”5 The Paradox for
Alemanno turns not only on the “was,” the impossible past being of a world
that has not yet been, it also turns on the adjectives of emptiness and nothing-
ness purportedly describing this being. If Alemanno can show that tohu and
bohu mean something other than efes and ayin, as “emptiness” and “nothing,”
then perhaps he can solve the puzzle.
Alemanno attempts to do this by first addressing bohu: “It is an existent,”
Alemanno writes, “and it turns the thing into that which is conceivable and
sensible.”6 In contradistinction, tohu is inconceivable and is beyond the sensi-
ble. This is similar to Nahmanides’ formulation as explained above in the intro-
duction, in which tohu is astounding because it is prior to bohu, which dresses
it with definitional form. For Alemanno, however, a dual sense of nothingness
remains, since in the above quote he explicitly mentions that tohu and bohu
indicate ha-efes and ha-ayin, respectively. But in light of the Nahmanidean dis-
tinction, if tohu is efes and bohu is ayin, then they cannot simply be the synony-
mous terms “emptiness” and “nothing.” Rather, their difference for Alemanno
seems to be related to the distinction between efes and ayin as recently char-
acterized by Elliot Wolfson as “the nothing of being-not” vs. “the nothing of
not-being.”7 In Wolfson’s characterization, the former is a nullification of all

4 A variant, early manuscript tradition reads: “What is the meaning of ‘was tohu’? This means
that it had already been tohu.” In this reading, the focus is not upon the temporal verb, as it
is in Alemanno, but it is upon the prior state of the earth as having been eternal tohu. See
Abrams, The Book Bahir, 119.
5 Ms. Paris BN Heb. 270, 6a: ‫אם מלת היתה מורה על הזמן אשר היה קודם הבריאה יתחייב א"כ‬
‫ ואם היא מורה על זמן היה אחר שהיתה א"כ אחרי‬.‫שהארץ היתה קודם שהיתה וזה חלוף לא יתכן‬
‫שהיתה לא היתה הואיל והיא תוהו ובוהו המורים על האפס והאין כאמרם אהפוך את העולם כלו‬
.‫ לתוהו ובוהו‬The references in rabbinic literature to God wanting to turn the world back to
tohu and bohu abound. For the idea that the existence of the world is contingent upon Israel’s
acceptance of the Torah, and will otherwise be returned to a state of desolation, see: Shemot
Rabbah 47:4; Devarim Rabbah 8:5; Babylonian Talmud Shabbat 88a; Babylonian Talmud
Avodah Zarah 3a.
6 Ms. Paris BN Heb. 270, 6a: ‫כי הוא דבר נמצא וכי הוא המשים את הדבר המושג והמוחש‬
7 Elliot Wolfson, Open Secret: Postmessianic Messianism and the Mystical Revision of Menahem
Mendel Schneerson (New York: Columbia University Press, 2009), 111. Wolfson points out that
Hylomorphic Time 101

that exists, yet it is a ground for existence, while the latter is a nullification even
of nullification itself.
Some of such thought does indeed seem to be at play for Alemanno,
though for him, both tohu and bohu are ultimately existents without essences.
Moreover, the order seems to be reversed; tohu as efes would be something
like the nothing of not-being, while bohu as ayin would be something like the
nothing of being-not. For Alemanno, bohu as ayin would be a non-essential
existent hypostatically lying at the beginning, while tohu as efes would be a
non-existent existent liminally pointing beyond the beginning and lying in an
astounding position of true desolation, beyond even ayin.
Such extreme apophatism seems to lie at the heart of Alemanno’s under-
standing of the processes of the beginning. However, like Nahmanides, this por-
tion of his thought remains veiled under a more straightforward Aristotelian
classification: bohu is the existent that makes known the lack in that which is
even beyond ayin, and the actuality that makes known the potentiality that
is teeming within that great beyond.8 In more candidly philosophical terms,
bohu is the form that brings the prime matter of tohu to fruition. For Alemanno,
once this philosophical process is unpacked by bohu, the ontically atemporal
apophatism of the temporal beginning can begin to rear its forever allusive
head from the beyond that is tohu. The philosophical ideas of form and mat-
ter as set up by Aristotelian hylomorphism can thus perhaps provide a point
of access to the enigma of the beginning and of that which is beyond the
beginning.
Gershom Scholem has identified the philosophical source of the idea of bohu
as divine form in contradistinction to tohu as inconceivable prime matter in
Abraham bar Hiyya’s early 12th century Hegayon ha-Nefesh.9 This certainly pre-
dates Alemanno, but it is also prior to Nahmanides, and by Scholem’s account,
it also predates the Bahir. It thus may have acted as the source for the Bahiric
passage that stands at the base of Alemanno’s discussion. Notwithstanding
this precedent, bar Hiyya seems to cast bohu Platonically as eternal divine
form, which takes ontological precedence to and temporally gives shape to a
separate prime matter. As bar Hiyya writes in his Hegayon ha-Nefesh:

for Shneur Zalman of Liadi, efes is indeed often paired with tohu, though in that context, it
is an aspect of Keter. This is quite different from the direction in which Alemanno takes his
discussion.
8 See Aristotle, Metaphysics 7:9.
9 See: Gershom Scholem, Origins of the Kabbalah, edited by R.J. Zwi Werblowsky and trans-
lated from the German by Allan Arkush (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1987), 63.
Scholem claims that bar Hiyya may have actually influenced the Bahir itself.
102 CHAPTER 5

Everything that has been said about the hyle, you can also say about the
[biblical] tohu. But they [the philosophers] said of the form that it is
something that has the power to clothe the hyle with a figure and a form.
And in this sense, the word bohu can be divided into two meanings, since,
according to the sense of the language, it is composed of two words, each
of which has two consonants. One is bo and the other hu . . . [and thus
bohu means] that through which the tohu is endowed with existence.
Bohu is thus the form in which tohu is clothed and given existence.10

In contrast to this formula, which privileges form as that which comes to

endow matter with existence, Alemanno takes a slightly different approach,
as based on a more composite Aristotelian hylomorphism. In this formu-
lation, form gives existence to matter and matter gives existence to form.
Alemanno writes:

There is no existence for the first hyle without a physical form that has
measure and an essential form of quality. And there is no existence for
material forms without a hyle that bears them, for they can only stand
and endure in matter. Thus, it is said according to the roots of wisdom
that the earth was, by its essence and by its core and by its existence, in
existence by way of the composition of tohu and bohu, which exist in a
composite manner.11

By way of casting this hylomorphism in biblical terms, here Alemanno indeed

seems to directly correlate hylic matter with tohu and primordial form with
bohu. But in true Aristotelian form, he does not stop with the double corre-
lation; indeed, he correlates the two with each other as well, claiming that
neither matter nor form can in fact exist without the other, and bohu as form
cannot exist alone in a totally abstracted realm.
In regard to tohu as prime matter, Alemanno repeats the Bahiric formulation
of tohu as “that which astonishes,” and then he explains that it is “an essence

10 Abraham bar Hiyya, Hegayon ha-Nefesh (Leipzig, 1860), fol. 2b, quoted in Scholem,
Origins, 63, fn. 22. For a fuller exposition of bar Hiyya on tohu as hyle, see: Andrew Mayer
Hahn, Tohu va-Vohu: Matter, Nothingness and Non-Being in Jewish Creation Theology (New
York: Ph.D. Dissertation of the Jewish Theological Seminary of America, 2001), 236–238.
11 Ms. Paris BN Heb. 270, 12a: ‫אין מציאות להיולי הראשון בלא צורה גשמית בעלת הכמות וצורה‬
‫ ואין מציאות לצורות החמריות בלא היולי נושא להם כי אינם עומדות‬.‫עצמית בעלת האיכות‬
‫ ולזה אמר כפי שרשי החכמה כי הארץ היתה מהותה ועצמותה ומציאותה‬.‫וקיימות כי אם בחומר‬
.‫במציאות הרכבת התוהו ובוהו שנמצאו בהתרכבם‬
Hylomorphic Time 103

that neither exists nor is absent,” but that it is a type of tertium quid “between
complete lack and complete actuality.”12 Alemanno’s language here is indeed
very consistent with medieval Aristotelian philosophy in relation to abstract
potentiality, as espoused by the likes of Averroes, Levi ben Gershom, and even
John Duns Scotus. Indeed, according to the principles of medieval Aristotelian
natural philosophy, something cannot possibly come into existence from noth-
ing, but it also cannot come into existence from something, since something
already is in existence. It follows that all things necessarily come into existence
from an entity that is neither nothing nor something, i.e., an entity that exists
in potential. For Aristotelian philosophers, that entity is prime matter, which is
unqualified as it exists in itself, but which changes all the time in accord with
the forms that are given over to it.13
Such is the case for Alemanno’s tohu, which he then explains in terms of
the Bahiric conception of astonishment: “The intellect will be astonished
and dumbfounded when trying to contemplate it,” he writes, “for it cannot be
depicted, due to the fact that it has no form of its own that defines and demar-
cates its essence, in the words of the wise men of natural science.”14 It is the
etourdissant of Rashi, previously mentioned in the introduction in relation to
tohu, or the astoundingly undefined hyle of Nahmanides. It is beyond form and
is thus essentially beyond essence. For Alemanno, prime matter as tohu has
an ontically apophatic character in that it is paradoxically a non-existent exis-
tent that is necessary for all of existence. It is an open corpus, but it remains
undefined in its very openness. In the words of Elliot Wolfson reflecting on
Maurice Merleau-Ponty in regard to language and embodiment: “Prior to the
division into antinomies, subject and object, interior and exterior, mind and
body, embodiment bespeaks the correlation of a ‘prereflective zone of the
openness upon Being.’ ”15 Although the context there is individual cognition,
the description can certainly be applied to Alemanno’s tohu, which is a more
cosmic, pre-formed zone of openness into Being. In this sense, for Alemanno,

12 Ibid., 7a: ‫ויורה על עצם שאינו לא נמצא ולא נעדר ולא מציאות חסר אמצעי בין ההעדר הגמור‬
.‫והפעל הגמור‬
13 For more on this, see: Esther Eisenmann, “The Scholastics after Thomas Aquinas and
the Thought of Rabbi Moshe ben Yehuda” [Hebrew], E-Lecture at the Goldstein-Goren
International Center for Jewish Thought, Ben Gurion University: http://hsf.bgu.ac.il/cjt/
files/electures/Rambi2.htm, and the primary sources of Averroes, Levi ben Gershom,
Shem Tov ibn Falaquera, Narboni, and Duns Scotus: http://hsf.bgu.ac.il/cjt/files/­electures/
RambiNotes.htm#F1-7 .
14 Ms. Paris BN Heb. 270, 7a: ‫והשכל תוהא ומשתומם להשכילו כי לא יצויר מצד שאין לו צורה‬
.‫מגבלת וגודרת מהותו מצד מה שהיא חלק ממנו כדברי חכמי הטבע‬
15 Wolfson, Language, Eros, Being, 24.
104 CHAPTER 5

it is the true beginning of all material and temporal beginnings, which at the
same time cannot be understood to have begun.
How, then, is one to know anything about tohu if it is truly formless and thus
apophatic in nature? For this, Alemanno turns to a dual reading of tohu as both
symbol and desire, which ultimately lead back to his more enigmatic ideas of
efes and ayin. In the first part of this reading, Alemanno suggests that the word
tohu should be understood as the compound of tav hu, i.e., “it is a symbol.”
He argues that this symbol of tohu was set forth “in order to symbolize that
it is an existent, and is not lacking.”16 Here, Alemanno seems to be setting up
an inevitable paradox of referential essentialism, in which the word tohu is a
symbol that points beyond itself to the essence of tohu, which is in itself a sym-
bol that by its very non-essential essence essentially points beyond its non-
essence to another essence that it is meant to essentialize in symbolic form.
Though clearly absurd, Alemanno’s casting of tohu as such precisely captures
its enigmatic, dumbfounding nature. It is like nature as Elliot Wolfson has
described it, as “a mirror of (dis)semblance, a veil unveiling the unveiling of
the veil veiling the (un)veiling of the veil.”17 For Alemanno, tohu becomes a
mystical symbol as explained by Gershom Scholem: “In the mystical symbol a
reality which in itself has, for us, no form or shape becomes transparent and,
as it were, visible, through the medium of another reality which clothes its
content with visible and expressible meaning.”18
Scholem’s notion of mystical symbolism has been criticized by Moshe
Idel as overemphasizing the referential nature of language as pointing to
the radically transcendent and apophatic, and it is indeed important to pay
attention to Idel’s admonishment to regard the performative as well as the
referential role of language in kabbalistic literature.19 This is especially so in
the case of Alemanno, for whom magical language played a prominent role.20
Nevertheless, in the case of Alemanno at least, I do not see the symbolically
referential and the magically performative functions of language as mutually

16 Ms. Paris BN Heb. 270, 7a: ‫תוהו שם מורכב ממלת תו שהיא מורה סימן כאמרו והתוית תו‬
.‫(יחזקאל ט' ד') לסמן שהוא דבר נמצא לא נעדר‬
17 Wolfson, Language, Eros, Being, 9.
18 Scholem, Major Trends, 64–65.
19 Idel, Absorbing Perfections, 19–20, 274–275.
20 See: Moshe Idel, “On Talismanic Language in Jewish Mysticism,” Diogenes 170 (1995):
23–41; Harvey Hames, “Jewish Magic with a Christian Text: A Hebrew Translation of
Ramon Llul’s ‘Ars Brevis,’ ” Traditio 54 (1999): 283–300; Guido Bartolucci, “Marsilio Ficino,
Yohanan Alemanno e la ‘Scientia Divinum Nominum,’ ” Rinascimento 48 (2008): 137–163.
Hylomorphic Time 105

exclusive; and indeed, the philosophically apophatic role of the Deus abscondi-
tus seems to remain intact.
As we should recall from chapter one of this present study, for example,
for Alemanno, man can create a golem because as an imperfect simulacrum
of his Creator (in the “image and likeness”), he can perform as a creator, but
only insofar as he is in the image of the sefirot, and not that which is beyond.
Through man’s inherently imperfect speech as parallel to the sefirot, which
paradoxically contains traces of the inner silent speech of God, man is able
to create.21 The performative and the referential stand side-by-side, since, as
I attempted to show in chapter one, the magical creation of the golem still
has behind it a philosophical notion of apophasis. I am aware of Idel’s claim
that “the coexistence of these two aspects, the symbolic and the performa-
tive, is to be accepted as a crucial feature of some major forms of theosophical
Kabbalah,” and that the symbolic is often “a precondition for resorting to the
performative aspect of language.”22 This statement seems to attenuate Idel’s
criticism of symbolic readings, and in the case of Alemanno, the textual evi-
dence indeed points to the fact that his thought moves in the precise direc-
tion outlined by Idel in this last, attenuating remark. Throughout Alemanno’s
microtheistic process, as we should recall, the First Cause remains beyond,
while it is God’s sefirotic structure as divine speech, or as illuminated causes,
which seems to be invoked for a necessarily imperfect magical creation.
In reading Alemanno on tohu as well, a simulatory understanding of the
nature of language seems to remain. Thus, Scholem’s observations concern-
ing mystical referentialism via the symbol, as well as Wolfson’s notion of “cos-
mic isotropy” in which “the cosmos is a semantic field wherein everything is a
sign pointing beyond itself to an interior reality that is itself a sign pointing to
what can only (im)properly be termed . . . unknowable”23 seem quite germane.

21 In this regard, see Elliot Wolfson’s important rejoinder to Idel’s claim regarding sym-
bolic language, in which Wolfson discusses “the paradoxical nature of the mystical claim
regarding language leading through itself to its own surpassing” (Language, Eros, Being,
402, fn. 57). This seems to be Alemanno’s sense of language here. Despite Idel’s criticism,
he indeed goes on to state: “the symbol as the divine presence within the lower world is
not only the feeble reflection of the supernal into the mundane but also the beginning of
an ontological chain that facilitates the transmission of the human influence on high. It is
an energetic entity, functioning as a speech act no less than a communicative unit” (Idel,
Absorbing Perfections, 276). For Alemanno, the chain is perhaps unbroken, but it indeed
reaches a point of apophatism in the very nature of tohu itself, as a symbol that only can
be a reflection of the supernal.
22 Idel, Absorbing Perfections, 276.
23 Wolfson, Language, Eros, Being, 8.
106 CHAPTER 5

Just as, for Scholem and for Wolfson, the symbol seeks to concretize and to
become an embodiment for the abstract, and remains wholly other than that
abstract yet at the same time cannot exist as symbol per se without embodying
the abstract that it is not, so too, for Alemanno, the prime matter of tohu relates
to the primordial form of bohu in a way in which it abstractly embodies it yet
without losing its non-essential essence by taking on essential form. Tohu as
beginning at once begins the cosmos as a semantic field captivated by bohu,
and points beyond itself to that which is before any before and beyond the
beginning. Such is tohu as symbol.
In the second part of Alemanno’s dual reading of tohu, he suggests that
the compound tav hu be read not as “it is a symbol,” but phonomorphically as
tav-alef-bet hu, i.e., “it is a desire.” “That is to say,” writes Alemanno, “that it is
a desire for everything that it lacks, as it lacks every form, and it desires that
they come into contact with it, that it can receive them.”24 Here, the beginning
of all beginnings is desire. Yet it is a receptive desire that precedes and acts as
the ground for the active desire, which without it cannot activate desire at all.
Thus, in its passivity, it is paradoxically the first actual beginning that brings
forth the beginning of all of creation.
This reading of tohu as related to desire has strong resonances with that
which Sarah Pessin, writing on Solomon ibn Gabirol, has called a “pure mate-
rial Grounding Element.”25 This is something that is apophatic in charac-
ter and is based within divine desire. It is, in the words of Pessin, “a material
underpinning to existence, a pulsing God-born and God-directed desire-to-
be at the heart of all things,”26 which first and foremost marks God’s entry
into the world, by and through a desire to embrace the other. Alemanno was
indeed familiar with the Fons Vitae, as well as the Pseudo-Empedoclean Book
of Five Substances, which Pessin has shown to be at the core of ibn Gabirol’s
theology of desire. Indeed, Alemanno explicitly cites both by name in Einei
ha-Edah,27 albeit in different contexts, and this ibn Gabirolian concept of mat-
ter may very well be at the heart of his discourse here. Whatever the case may
be, Alemanno’s notion of matter here is certainly positive, thereby creating a
sense of hylomorphism that turns the traditional Plotinian sense of matter as
the source of evil on its head.

24 Ms. Paris BN Heb. 270, 7a: ‫ומורה ג"כ תאוה כלומר תו שהוא תאב לכל דבר לחסרונו שהוא חסר‬
.‫מכל צורה ותאב להם להכותו לקבלם‬
25 Sarah Pessin, Ibn Gabirol’s Theology of Desire: Matter and Method in Jewish Medieval
Neoplatonism (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2013), 107.
26 Ibid., 108.
27 Ms. Paris BN Heb. 270, 1a, 13a.
Hylomorphic Time 107

Later in his Einei ha-Edah, Alemanno returns to the idea of desire as the
beginning of creation, though rather than linking it to hylic matter, he links
it to the Sabbath. Writing not about the beginning, but about the very last
day recounted in the story of creation, he states that “the seventh light, in its
eternal return is always at rest, according to the saying of our sages of blessed
memory: ‘What was the world lacking? Rest. Shabbat came, and so did rest.’ ”28
Through the process of “eternal return,” he links the last day to the very begin-
ning, making it into the rest that precedes the first. He continues, explaining
this process in terms of the same type of primordial desire as characterized by
his symbolic reading of tohu:

This desire was emanated in order to put everything at rest (menuhah).

And this is the ultimate intention for which God created His world, doing
it in a circular motion so that it would return from Him and to Him. For
the influx pours forth from the supernal point until the last point, which
are Keter Elyon and hylic matter [respectively]. And it turns around and
around, and it ascends from one level to another level until it returns
to the supernal point by a circular movement that is from Him and to
Him, constantly causing the light of existence to go forth from Him and
to return to Him. There [i.e., in Him] is the rest of eternal life.29

Commenting on this passage, Moshe Idel perceptively observes that at play

here are “three Neoplatonic concepts: the processio, the motion descending
from God; the reversio, the motion toward God, and the repose, in Hebrew
menuhah.”30 While not explicitly drawn out as such by Alemanno himself,
such Proclean thought may very well be enmeshed within this passage. This
would conceptually bring Alemanno’s notion of desire as the beginning into
proximity with both Pico’s and Leone’s Proclean concepts of Wisdom as the
beginning, as explained in chapters two and four above. Nevertheless, another
narrative that hypostatically brings the discourse back to tohu and bohu as the

28 Ibid., 44b: ‫והאור השביעי בשובו נצחי הוא תמיד במנוחה כאמרם ז"ל מה היה העולם חסר‬
.‫ מנוחה בא שבת בא מנוחה‬The rabbinic citation here is Bereshit Rabbah 10:9.
29 Ibid., 44b–45a: ‫ והיא הכונה התכליתיית אשר ברא אלהים‬.‫נאצל זה החשק לשים הכל במנוחה‬
‫ אותו‬.‫את עולמו לעשות ע"כי השפע שופע מהנקודה העליונה עד הנקודה האחרונה שהוא כ‬
‫בתנועה סבובית כדי שישוב ממנו ואליו וההיולי וסובב סובב ועולה ממדרגה למדרגה עד שוב‬
‫אל הנקודה העליונה בתנועה הסבובית אשר היא ממנו ואליו לעשות תמיד שיצא אור המציאות‬
.‫ אשר שם מנוחת חי העולמים‬.‫ממנו אליו‬
30 Idel, Moshe Idel, Kabbalah and Eros, (New Haven and London: Yale University Press,
2005), 187–188.
108 CHAPTER 5

beginning (and the end) is involved here; that narrative is the kabbalistic ren-
dering of cosmic cycles of time, known as shmittot and yovelot.
In a fascinating passage within his untitled kabbalistic manuscript now
housed in the Bibliothèque nationale de France, Alemanno explains:

As we have seen in the Torah: You shall work for six days, and on the sev-
enth, you shall rest (Exodus 34:21); six years you shall work (the land),
and in the seventh, you shall release it and abandon it (Exodus 23:11).
And there will be seven shmittot, i.e., cycles of release, and afterwards a
yovel, i.e., a jubilee (cf., Leviticus 25:8–10). And every day is designated to
one of the sefirot, and every year of the shmittah as well. Thus, the sons
of prophets and those who understand Torah agreed that “the world will
exist for six millennia and will be desolate for one millennium.”31 Thus
there will be seven shmittot of rest and afterwards will be the great yovel,
in which the All will return to tohu and bohu, and nobody will know what
it is, but [will know] that the All will return to how it was.32

Here Alemanno is laying the biblical foundations for cyclical notions of time,
with the weekly cycle of the Sabbath and with the seven year sabbatical cycle
and the related fifty year jubilee cycle. He then shifts the discourse to kabbal-
istic notions of the sefirot, as based in Talmudic readings that render the bib-
lical cycles in large-scale, cosmologically eschatological terms. The sefirot in
this case act not only as symbols, but as the guiding forces of time and as the
governing forces of history. In a detailed reading of history that would take us
too far afield to enter into here, Alemanno, basing himself on the earlier tradi-
tions of Joseph ben Shalom Ashkenazi, Sefer ha-Peliyah, and Isaac of Acco’s
Meirat Einayim, sees the processes of time as Mercy pitted against Judgment,
or good pitted against evil.33 What is important for our purposes is the idea of
a “return to tohu and bohu” in “the great yovel.” According to Alemanno, in that
fifty-thousandth millennium the world will cycle back upon itself, bringing the
uroboric end into contact with the beginning that is tohu and bohu.

31 BT Rosh Ha-Shanah 31a; BT Sanhedrin 97a.

32 Ms. Paris BN Heb. 849, 121b: ‫ שש‬.‫כאשר ראינו בתורה ששת ימים תעבוד ובשביעי תשבות‬
‫ וז' שמיטות ואחר היובל וכל יום מיוחד לאחד‬.‫שנים תעבוד ובשביעית תשמטנה ונטשתה‬
‫הספירות וכל שנה מהשמטה כן הסכימו בני הנביאים ותופשי תורה כי שתא אלפי הוי עלמא וחד‬
‫ וכן יהיו שבע שבתות שמיטות ואחר יהיה היובל הגדול אשר ישוב הכל לתוהו ובבוהו ולא‬.‫חריב‬
.‫ידעו מה הוא אלא שישוב הכל כשהיה‬
33 For a more detailed treatment of this within Einei ha-Edah, see Ogren, Renaissance and
Rebirth, 185–211.
Hylomorphic Time 109

Alemanno notes that many astronomers mark the cycle of renewal at thirty-
six thousand years. But based on the twelfth century apocalyptic astronomical
work Megilat ha-Megalleh by the previously mentioned Abraham bar Hiyya,
Alemanno holds that the cycle back into tohu and bohu is every forty-nine thou-
sand years.34 He goes on to explain this in more specifically sefirotic language:

According to this, the masters of prophecy agreed by way of forty-nine

gates of Binah, for the All will return to it [i.e., to Binah]. But opinions
as to what will happen at the end of every shmittah of the six millen-
nia and one millennium of desolation is divided into three schools:
Either the All will be destroyed, and after the millennium it will be
renewed, or only the lower world will be destroyed and not the supernal
world, or only the population of men who work the land will be destroyed
but not those who serve the Lord. This is until the great yovel, which is at
the end of fifty millennia, for then the All will be destroyed, upper and
lower, and everything will return by the power of Binah, and nobody
knows what will be afterwards, for even Moses was not given prophecy
for one of the fifty gates of Binah.35

Within this passage, Alemanno discusses two cyclical processes of beginning:

that between the ending of one shmittah cycle and the beginning of another,
and that which occurs between yovel cycles. The former marks the endings and
beginnings of variously characterized epochs, and in this case, the nature of
the transition is up for debate. The latter marks the ending and beginning
of all of creation, and in this case, what lies between the two syzygistic points
is beyond debate because it is beyond all human comprehension.
In order to illustrate this apophatic point, Alemanno has recourse to the
famous rabbinic dictum that states: “Fifty gates of understanding (Binah) were
created in the world, and all of them were given to Moses except for one, as it
is said: You have kept him lacking a little bit from God (Psalm 8:6).”36 According

34 See Abraham bar Chija, Sefer Megillat ha-Megalle (Berlin: Mekize Nirdamim, 1924), 71–72.
35 Ms. Paris BN Heb. 849, 121b: .‫וכן הסכימו בעלי הנבואה במ"ט שערי בינה כי הכל ישוב אליה‬
‫ או כי יחרב הכל ואחר האלף‬.‫אך בסוף כל שמיטה משתא אלפי וחד חריב נחלקו לשלש כתות‬
‫ או כי יחרב הישוב לבד מאין אדם עובד אדמה‬.‫יתחדש או יחרב העולם התחתון לבדו לא העליון‬
‫כי אם עובד ה' עד היובל הגדול שהוא בסוף חמשים אלף שנים כי יחרב הכל עליונים ­ותחתונים‬
‫וישובו כלם בכח הבינה ומה יהיה אחריו לא ידעו מה כי גם משה לא נתן לו נבואה באחד‬
.‫מחמשים שערי בינה‬
36 BT Rosh ha-Shanah 21b, BT Nedarim 38a: ‫חמישים שערי בינה נבראו בעולם וכולם נתנו למשה‬
.‫ ותחסרהו מעט מאלהים‬:‫ שנאמר‬,‫חסר אחד‬
110 CHAPTER 5

to the classical kabbalistic reading of this as recounted and advocated by

Alemanno, the fifty gates parallel the fifty millennia in a yovel; only forty-
nine of these millennia are a knowable part of creation, just as there are only
forty-nine gates known by the greatest of prophets and revealed in his Torah.
The fiftieth, which is simultaneously the beginning and end, is beyond actual
creation and is thus beyond all comprehension. What is more, by a linguistic
turn, this incomprehensible gate is linked to the third sefirah that stands above
and beyond the seven lower sefirot, just as the yovel as fiftieth stands above and
beyond the seven times seven, or forty-nine millennia. The eternal return is
to Binah, from which all equally proceeds.37 For Alemanno, as we will see, the
sefirah of Binah, cast temporally as the great yovel, becomes situationally and
hylically cast as none other than tohu.
Nevertheless, Alemanno’s temporal language in regard to the sefirot and his
time-based struggle with the apophatic notion of the beginning certainly are
not limited to the cosmic cycles of shmittot and yovelot. Indeed, later within
Einei ha-Edah, he offers a different model by relating his positive hylomorphic
idea of tohu and bohu by to the initial biblical recounting of time. This recount-
ing comes in Genesis 2:4, which states: These are the generations of the heavens
and the earth. In relation to a statement in Bereshit Rabbah by Rabbi Abihu
that the word “these” in the verse negates that which came before, which for
Rabbi Abihu are, tohu and bohu, Alemanno writes that “the Scripture does not
speak about the past.”38 What he means by this reading is that the first creation
story of Genesis 1:1–2:3 tells not of time, but in its entirety, it tells of tohu and
bohu as necessary antecedents to time. For Alemanno, the first creation story
of Genesis actually tells of that which Shaul Magid, in relation to later Lurianic
mythology, has termed “protocreativity.” This is described by Magid as “the
transformation of God from undifferentiated Infinitude to cosmos—which
creates the necessary condition for creation to unfold.”39 Alemanno writes that
along with darkness, tohu and bohu are “prior to the coming into being of the
generations of the heavens and the earth, and they are the reason for existents
and for things that are born. They themselves are not amongst the generations

37 For an isomorphic association between “Return” (Teshuvah), the Yovel, and Binah in
Alemanno’s thought, as well as its connection to the giving of Torah and to personal
redemption, see ms. Paris BN Heb. 849, 94a.
38 Ms. Paris BN Heb. 270, 68a: .‫ לא על העבר דבר הכתוב‬The reference is to Bereshit
Rabbah 12:3.
39 Shaul Magid, “Origin and Overcoming the Beginning,” 164.
Hylomorphic Time 111

of the heavens and the earth.”40 They are ontically before and outside of time,
but they are also paradoxically the cause and the beginnings of time, without
which time would not exist.
How, then, is one to make sense of the first story of creation in all of its
temporal language of succession and days if it is not a temporal recounting,
and is in fact prior to time? To answer this, Alemanno relies on a theory of the
hypostatization of tohu and bohu, as based upon a passage from the Talmudic
tractate Hagigah, which states:

It is taught: Tohu is a green line that encompasses the entire world, out of
which darkness proceeds, for it is said: He made darkness His hiding-place
round about Him [Psalm 18:12]. Bohu, this means the slippery41 stones
that are embedded in the abyss, out of which the waters issue forth, for
it is said: And he shall stretch over it the line of tohu and the stones of bohu
[Isaiah 34:11].42

Alemanno quotes: “Tohu is a green line that encompasses the entire world,”
subsequently explaining: “this is Binah.” He then continues the Talmudic
quote: “Bohu is the slippery stones,” explaining that “this means that they
are moist,” and that they are “gagat nahi,” i.e., Gedulah, Gevurah, Tif’eret,
Netzah, Hod and Yesod. “Their beginning,” he notes, “is Hesed, which is water.”43
This last bit about moisture and water is quite significant, for in another place
in Einei ha-Edah, Alemanno allegorizes the formless form of the beginning to
water, which is a substance that has no form of its own, but which takes on the
form of that to which it is applied. Just as water takes on the form of the vessel
into which it is poured yet has no form of its own, so too hylic matter is form-
less on its own, and thus ungraspable. Following out this metaphor, he takes
the Hebrew word for water, mayim, to be a plural form of mah, i.e., “what,”
which thereby indicates a plurality of “whats,” or essences, which by its nature

40 Ms. Paris BN Heb. 270, 68a: ‫ומה פסל תוהו ובהו וחשך והסבה כי אלה הם ראשית הנמצאות‬
‫למביני מדע הם חמר וצורה והעדר הקודמים להויה לתולדות השמים והארץ והם סבה להוים‬
.‫ונולדים לא שיהיו הם מכלל תולדות השמים והארץ‬
41 ‫מפולמות‬. Jastrow renders this “smooth (chaotic) stones,” but I render it here “slippery”
due to Alemanno’s idea that these stones are “moist” (‫)לחות‬.
42 BT Hagigah 12a.
43 Ms. Paris BN Heb. 270, 68a: ‫הם בינה אשר קראוה תוהו כדברי רז"ל תוהו זה קו ירוק המקיף‬
‫ בהו אלו אבנים מפולמות פי' לחות הם אבנים הבניין שהם גג"ת‬.‫את העולם כלו שהוא הבינה‬
‫ וקראו האחרונות בוהו המורה על ישות וצורה להיותם פועלות‬.‫נה"י שתחילתם חסד שהוא מים‬
.‫בתחתונים פעולה מורגשת יותר מהראשונה לרוב רוחניות שבה‬
112 CHAPTER 5

causes it to elude any one single essence.44 In this manner, bohu as the moist
stones, which start from Hesed as water, shares apophatic qualities with tohu.
In another place in Einei ha-Edah, Alemanno parallels his sefirotic formula-
tion of the Hagigah passage that asserts tohu as a green line and bohu as slip-
pery stones, writing:

He [i.e., Moses] allegorized first matter and first form, which are the
beginning of everything that is composed from them, as tohu and bohu,
which, according to the allegory, are the line of measurement by which
one erects a building, and the dividing stone; with these, the builder
builds his house and his walls. It is as the prophets have called them:
a line of tohu and stones of bohu [Isaiah 34:11]. These are matter and form,
by which, and through the conjunction of which were built every single
composite. Thus our sages of blessed memory have said: “Tohu is a green
line that encompasses the world, bohu is the slippery stones.”45 The line
is Binah and the stones are gagat nahi, [i.e., Gedulah, Gevurah, Tiferet,
Netzah, Hod and Yesod]. And these stones build up more than the line
due to their closeness, but the line is the beginning of the building.46

In this passage, the move from philosophy to kabbalah is clear. Alemanno

starts with first matter and first form as tohu and bohu respectively, which he
allegorizes as “line of measurement” and “dividing stone” respectively. As in the
previous example of hypostatization, Alemanno substantiates his allegoriza-
tion here with Talmud tractate Hagigah, and also with the book of Isaiah. But
here he takes the allegory a step further by relating the act of creation to the
field of construction. He argues that with the two tools of tohu as the line of
measurement and bohu as the dividing stone, “the builder (ha-boneh) builds
(yivneh) his house and walls.” He additionally states that from tohu and bohu
“were built (nivnu) every single composite.” Herein lies a subtle play-on-words,
which Alemanno masterfully turns into a theosophical reading of tohu and

44 Ibid., 22b: ‫ובארו מפרשיו כי אלה המים הם המציאות שבו נתלו הצורות והיו המהיות בכל דבר‬
.‫ כי מים מלשון מה כלומר מהיות שונות‬.‫שהוא מה‬
45 B T Hagigah 12a.
46 Ms. Paris BN Heb. 270, 20a: ‫עוד המשיל החמר והצורה הראשונים אשר הם ראשית לכל‬
‫המורכבים מהם לתוהו ובוהו אשר הם לפי המשל קו המדה שמיישרים בו הבנין ואבן הבדיל‬
‫ והם‬.‫אשר בהם יבנה הבונה ביתו וחומותיו כמו שקראוהו הנביאים קו תוהו ואבני בוהו‬
‫ וכן אמרו ז"ל תהו קו ירוק‬.‫החומר והצורה שעל ידיהם והרכבותיהם נבנו כל המורכבים כלם‬
‫מקיף העולם בוהו אבנים מפולמות הקו הוא הבינה והאבנים גג"ת נה"י והם יותר בונים מהקו‬
.‫ והקו ראשית הבנין‬.‫לקרבתם‬
Hylomorphic Time 113

bohu. “Building,” i.e., b’niyah, directly relates to the sefirah of Binah, which for
Alemanno is the theosophical model of tohu, and which acts as the concealed
“beginning of the building.” Tohu as Binah is a liminal point that does not itself
build, but without which, building would be impossible. It is the beginning of
the beginning. This is in contrast to bohu, which is the revealed beginning that
begins to take form by the six lower sefirot before Malkhut, which themselves
are represented as the building that is constructed before the Sabbath rest.
Given that this allegory of the six wet stones of the building prior to the
Sabbath is cast as that which also precedes the generations of the heavens and
the earth, before which no chronology exists, it seems that they relate to the
six days of creation before the Sabbath as recounted in the first chapter of
Genesis. Tohu, by contrast, remains the liminal point of the beginning beyond
these manifest beginnings in bohu. It is the primordial, upper Sabbath, Binah,
which is classically cast as the womb without which nothing can be born into
existence, and through which Nothing is born into existence.
For the purpose of drawing this discussion of slippery building stones back
into the cyclical model of shmittot and yovelot, it is important to bring forth a
passage that appears in Alemanno’s Collectanea, which is a compendium of
segments from the fourteenth century Joseph ben Shalom Ashkenazi’s com-
mentary on Sefer Yetzirah. Playing on the notions of slippery building stones
and waters from the abyss, as drawn from tractate Hagigah, the passage states:

The power of Binah is cast as a cornerstone from the power of Hokhmah

and Keter Elyon. And within this stone the Painter depicted all of the
creatures. And it is the base stone from which the earth was established.
Thus it is every time that the supernal retinue agrees to renew the shmit-
tah, for every sefirah serves for six thousand years and afterwards serves
for a thousand years, and then the service returns to the sefirah that is
after it, and they renew the world upon the foundation stone, which
is Binah, from which the earth is established. And it is called Bohu,
which are the slippery stones that are embedded in the abyss. And from
them waters, which are the existents, issue forth to the world.47

47 Ms. Oxford Bodleian 2234, 98b: ‫כח הבינה הו' ירה מכח החכמה וכ"ע אבן פינה ובאבן הזאת‬
'‫ וכן בכל פעם שמסכימי' פמלי‬.‫צייר המצייר כל היצורי' והי' אבן שתייה שממנה הושתת העולם‬
‫שלמעלה לחדש השמיטה כי כל ספיר' משמשת ו' אלפי' שנה ואחר משמשת אלף שני' וחוזר‬
‫השימוש לספיר' שאחריה ומחדשות העולם על אבן היסוד שהו' בינה שממנה משתתה העולם‬
.'‫והי' הנקר' בוהו שהם אבני מפולמו' משוקעו' בתהום ומהם מים יוצאים לעולם שהם ההויו‬
114 CHAPTER 5

There are certainly similarities between this passage copied by Alemanno

and his own account in Einei ha-Edah, and he may very well have drawn on
Ashkenazi for his own formulation. The most conspicuous similarity is the
juxtaposition of “the slippery stones that are embedded in the abyss,” taken
from tractate Hagigah, with the kabbalistic sefirot. Another similarity is the
paralleling of the “waters” with material existents, and another is the dominant
metaphor of building, which for both thinkers relates to Binah.
Notwithstanding the similarities, it is important to point out some of the
glaring discrepancies between Alemanno and Ashkenazi. One discrepancy
is that unlike Ashkenazi, Alemanno does not tie the sefirotic reading of the
Hagigah passage into the cosmic theory of shmittot. If he was relying on
Ashkenazi for his own formulation, then the omission would seem strange,
given his familiarity with the theory of cosmic cycles and the importance of
the theory to his understanding of creation, as discussed above. One pos-
sible explanation may be Alemanno’s marginalization of the importance for
the shmittot of Binah, which he rather reserves as the cornerstone for the
great yovel. For Alemanno, as we recall, what happens at the endings and
beginnings of the shmittot is up for debate, while in the great yovel, “the All
will be destroyed, upper and lower, and everything will return by the power
of Binah.” The world is then renewed from that apophatic point of liminal-
ity. For Ashkenazi, by contrast, after every shmittah, the sefirot “renew the
world upon the foundation stone, which is Binah, from which the earth is
established.” In fact, absolutely no mention is made of the great yovel in the
passages copied by Alemanno.
Whether or not Alemanno was drawing from Ashkenazi in his sefirotic read-
ing of the sefirotic stones of creation, he certainly develops the idea in a differ-
ent manner. One illustration of this is another important discrepancy based
on the liminal nature of Binah as the beginning. For Ashkenazi, Binah as the
foundation stone of creation “is called Bohu.” While it draws its power from
Hokhmah and Keter, Binah is ultimately the place where all manifestly begins.
For Alemanno, by contrast, Binah is clearly tohu while the slippery stones of
bohu are gagat nahi. Bohu is indeed more manifest, but it takes on this charac-
ter as the six sefirot below Binah and before Malkhut. In temporal terms, it is
like the profane days of the week within which existence manifests itself, while
tohu acts more liminally as the beginning (and ending), like the Sabbath that
is Binah (and Malkhut).
In regard to the liminal beginning of tohu, Alemanno subtly ties the dis-
course back to the Bahir passage with which we began, stating that “in relation
to the lower elements . . . tohu is something that does not have a real substance
Hylomorphic Time 115

(davar she-eyn bo mamash).”48 This is the precise language of “real substance”

that the Bahir claims for bohu (davar she-yesh bo mamash). Hence, without
explicitly stating his prooftext here, Alemanno is bringing his discussion of
tohu and bohu full circle through the unreal existence of tohu, which begins
the real existence of bohu. In regard to bohu, however, Alemanno writes here
that this too is temporally liminal. In relation to Genesis 2:4, which states:
These are the generations of the heavens and the earth, Alemanno reasserts that
like the tohu of Binah, so too the six sefirot of bohu “are not included amongst
the generations of the heavens, for they are the beginnings of them.”49
In regard to the heavens themselves and their own ‘generation,’ Alemanno
states that their name is indicative of their structure. In true rabbinic form, the
word of the Lord not only nominally conveys meaning for Alemanno, but it
actively creates essences. “Shamayim, i.e., ‘heavens,’ ” he writes, “is a word com-
posed of sa’, i.e., ‘carry,’ and mayim, i.e., ‘waters,’ in order to teach that it [sic]
carries the upper waters.”50 This seems to relate to the non-essential essence
of water, which, as we should recall, Alemanno relates to Hesed as the begin-
ning of Bohu. Alemanno continues in relation to the word shamayim: “It is
also composed of fire, i.e., esh, and water, i.e., mayim, for if one reverses the
sha (of shamayim), it is esh; [this is] in order to teach that it [sic] is not light
like fire and not heavy like water, and not moist and not dry, and not hot and
not cold.”51 This certainly has an elemental quality to it, but it can also reason-
ably be read hypostatically. In fact, in a later passage discussing the elements,
Alemanno explicitly associates the patriarch Abraham and the angel Michael,
who are typically related to Hesed, to water and to matter, while he associates

48 Ms. Paris BN Heb. 270, 20a: ‫קראוה בערך אל התחתונים תוהו כדבר שאין בו ממש מורגש‬
.‫למטה‬
49 Ibid.: ‫גם אלה לא נכללו בתולדות השמים כי הם התחלות להם‬
50 Ms. Paris BN Heb. 270, 7a: .‫הוא שם מורכב משא ומים להורות שהוא [!] נושא מים עליונים‬
51 Ms. Paris BN Heb. 270, 7a: ‫ להורות שאינו [!] לא‬,‫ומורכב מאש ומים כי אם תהפך שא הוא אש‬
.‫ ולא חם ולא קר‬,‫ ולא לח ולא יבש‬,‫ קל כאש ולא כבד כמים‬See also ms. Paris BN Heb. 270, 23a:
‫בני הנביאים אמרו שהוא מורכב מאש ומים כהוראת שמו שמים שהוא מורה על גדרו שהוא שא‬
.‫ מים בהפוך שא לאש‬In both of these places, Alemanno is returning to BT Hagigah 12a,
which, in continuation of the passage cited above, reads: “What does heaven [shamayim]
mean? R. Jose ben Hanina said: It means : ‘There is water.’ In a Baraita it is taught: [It
means]: fire and water; this teaches that the Holy One, blessed be He, brought them and
mixed them one with the other and made from them the firmament.” See also: Abrams,
The Book Bahir, 139–141 and Recanati, Commentary on the Torah, 7, which both clearly had
an influence upon Alemanno.
116 CHAPTER 5

the patriarch Isaac and the angel Gabriel, who are typically related to Gevurah,
to fire and to form.52
On the hypostatic level, then, Alemanno’s understanding of the heavens as
brought forth from Hagigah 12a can be understood in the following manner:
Hesed as represented by the fluid properties of water, i.e., mayim, and Gevurah
as represented by the equally amorphous properties of fire, i.e., esh, combine
to make up the heavens, i.e., shamayim. In so doing, these hypostases act as the
formless, atemporal beginnings of the heavens, which combine in Tiferet as
represented by the correspondingly shapeless properties of air; all of these are
ultimately contained within Malkhut, which is representative of the supernal
earth, which is the lesser tohu in that it is a receptacle that has no form of its
own.53 For Alemanno, tohu and bohu are the beginnings of the generations
that they begin to generate, in Binah and the lower six sefirot, and then again
in Malkhut and the formation of the natural earth. At the same time, they are
outside of these generations, beyond the beginnings of the heavens and the
earth, and beyond time itself.

52 Ms. Paris BN Heb. 270, 27a. This is an interesting reversal, as one might expect Hesed to
be related to form and Gevurah to be related to matter, in line with the typical Plotinian
conceptualization of matter as the source of evil. This, in fact, is the approach taken by
Abravanel, as will be discussed in chapter seven, below.
53 This reading is supported by Ms. Paris BN Heb. 270, 71b: ‫ההבלים האלו עולים עד המדה‬
.‫הכלולה מג' מדות אש ומים ואויר שהם גג"ת שמלכות כלולה מהם‬
 CHAPTER 6

Edifices and Days—Giovanni Pico della Mirandola

on Formation, Teshuvah, and the Return to Christ

Giovanni Pico della Mirandola subscribes to an idea of the heavens that is sim-
ilar to that of Alemanno, that they were formed at the beginning of creation
through the combination of fire and water. Also similar to Alemanno is Pico’s
idea that the earth was initially chaos, i.e., tohu, and began to go through a
process of formal development, i.e., bohu. These two points of exegetical com-
monality regarding the beginning of the world have been noted by scholars,
and given the known collaboration between Alemanno and Pico, they have
led to the postulation of a direct influence in these matters by Alemanno
upon Pico.1 They also seem to have contributed to the widely held assump-
tion by scholars that Alemanno wrote, or at least began to write his Einei ha-
Edah in Florence in 1489, contemporaneously with the publication of Pico’s
Heptaplus.2 Notwithstanding, a close analysis of the texts themselves reveals a
more complex picture.
First, there is no textual evidence to substantiate either 1489 as the start
date of Einei ha-Edah or Florence as its place of production, two assertions
which would indeed place it in both temporal and spatial proximity to the
Heptaplus. In fact, the only year explicitly mentioned in Einei ha-Edah is 5265,
which translates to 1505 on the Gregorian calendar.3 This is sixteen years after
Pico wrote his Heptaplus, and is the last recorded year in any of Alemanno’s
compositions. It is also eleven years after Pico’s death. Second, even though
Pico seems to have only made the acquaintance of Alemanno in 1488, he
already invokes the idea that the heavens are made up of a combination of
fire and water in his Conclusiones of 1486. Moreover, the idea as exposited by
Pico there takes on a kabbalistically theosophical tone that is actually much
closer to that of Alemanno than the tone that he gives it in his later Heptaplus.

1 See especially B.C. Novak, “Giovanni Pico della Mirandola and Jochanan Alemanno,” Journal
of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes, vol. 45 (1982), 132–136. For the carefully noted paral-
lels in Alemanno’s Einei ha-Edah, his Hay ha-‘Olamim, and Pico’s Heptaplus, without a direct
assertion of influence, see Lelli, L’immortale, 113, fn. 292 and 109, fn. 261.
2 Novak, 132; Lesley, The Song of Solomon’s Ascents, 13; Lelli, L’immortale, 8–9; Black, Pico’s
Heptaplus, 18.
3 On fol. 43a of ms. Paris 270, Alemanno writes: ‫הלא השמים והארץ וכל צבאם לא כלו זה חמשת‬
.‫אלפים ומאתים וששים וחמשה שנים שנבראו‬

© koninklijke brill nv, leiden, ���6 | doi ��.��63/9789004330634_008

118 CHAPTER 6

Thus, the work composed prior to the purported meeting between the two
savants reflects a greater parallelism than the work composed a year after their
presumed encounter. There Pico writes:

Through the saying of the Cabalists, “The heavens are made from fire and
water,” we simultaneously show both the theological truth of the sefirot
themselves, and the philosophical truth that the elements in heaven exist
only according to their active power.4

Despite the fact that no Hebrew is directly invoked here, the “theological truth
of the sefirot” mentioned by Pico here most probably relates to the Midrashic
etymology of the word for heavens as laid out in Hagigah 12a and as exposited
by the likes of Alemanno, i.e., shamayim, as a combination of fire (esh), and
water (mayim). As Chaim Wirszubski has discerningly noted, this is kabbalisti-
cally best hashed out for Pico through a symbolic understanding of “the theo-
logical truth of the sefirot”: the fifth sefirah of Judgment is represented by “fire,”
the fourth sefirah of Benevolence is represented by “water,” and both unite
in the sixth sefirah of Mercy, which is also called “Heavens.”5 Despite the prob-
lematics of the time of encounter between Alemanno and Pico and the time
of composition of both the Conclusiones and Einei ha-Edah, Pico’s resonances
here with Alemanno’s reading as outlined above are indeed astounding.
In the Heptaplus, Pico leaves aside the theosophical language of sefirot as
mentioned in the Conclusiones in regard to fire and water, and expands on the
“philosophical truth” regarding the heavens and their active power. In this con-
text, he frames the discussion within the perceived hierarchy of three worlds,
the highest of which “theologians call the angelic and philosophers the intel-
ligible,” the next of which is “the celestial world, and last of all, this sublunary
one which we inhabit.”6 Pico continues, concerning the heavens themselves,
as follows:

This is the world of darkness; that the world of light; the heavens are
compounded of light and darkness. This world is symbolized by water, a
flowing and unstable substance; that by fire, for the splendor of its light
and the elevation of its position; of a middle nature, the heavens are on
that account called by the Hebrews asciamaim, as if composed of es and
maim, that is, of the fire and water of which we spoke. Here there is an

4 Farmer, 549.
5 Wirszubski, Pico’s Encounter, 180.
6 Heptaplus, 75.
Edifices and days 119

alternation of life and death; there, eternal life and unchanging activity;
in the heavens, stability of life but change of activity and position.7

Here, the heavens act as a medium between the transient, sublunar world that
is given over to privation, and the permanent, angelic world that is marked by
eternality. In this sense, the heavens as the beginning of creation are markedly
hylomorphic. They are made up of fire, which represents the light of divine
form, and water, which represents matter. In an earlier passage that is remi-
niscent of Alemanno’s take on water, Pico states: “The theologians often met-
aphorically refer to matter (that is, the unformed substance of which I said
every creature is composed) as water, because water is in continual flux and
readily takes on any form.”8 By contrast to the nature of water, Pico himself
states in his Heptaplus that “fire is the seraphic intellect.”9 In conjunction as
the real substance of the heavens, fire and water become a medium between
intellect and matter in the process of creation.
A similar type of hierarchy seems to show up in Pico’s Oration, in which “the
seraph burns with the fire of love; the cherub shines with the splendor of intel-
ligence; the throne stands in steadfastness judgment.”10 Later in the same pas-
sage, Pico notes that “the Spirit of the Lord is carried over the waters . . . above
the heavens.”11 Here he does not explicitly mention shamayim as a conjunc-
tion of esh and mayim, as he does in his Heptaplus; nor does he explicitly
state that the heavens are made from fire and water and then tie them to the
sefirot as he does in his Conclusiones. Nevertheless, he does mention fire in
relation to seraphic love, and water in relation to the heavens. This has led
Brian Copenhaver to surmise, in light of the influence of Pseudo-Dionysius’
Celestial Hierarchy upon Pico, that “Pico alludes here not only to the first men-
tion of the Spirit in the book of Genesis but also to a reading of shamayim,
the Hebrew word for ‘heavens,’ as containing fire (esh) and water (mayim),
so that the waters of the ‘Cherubic minds’ are above the visible heavens but
below the supercelestial fire of the Seraphim.”12 If Copenhaver’s insightful

7 Ibid.
8  Commentary on a Canzone, 114; Commento sopra una canzone, 54: è da’ Theologi molte
volte significate per l’acqua, per essere l’acqua in continuo flusso e facilmente receptive
d’ogni forma.
9  Heptaplus, 77.
10 Pico, Oration, 137.
11 Ibid., 139.
12 Brian Copenhaver, “The Secret of Pico’s Oration: Cabala and Renaissance Philosophy,”
Midwest Studies in Philosophy, XXVI (2002): 62.
120 CHAPTER 6

reading is correct, then here we have an angelic understanding of the hylomor-

phic process, which mirrors both the sefirotic interplay between Benevolence
and Judgment and the temporal interplay between worldly transience and
supernal eternality.
But the heavens act not only as a hylomorphic medium for Pico, on various
levels of understanding; they also seem to act as a transition point in their very
makeup as a coincidence of opposites. Perhaps it is not coincidental that in the
hypostatic formulation of his earlier Conclusiones, Pico begins with fire and
proceeds to water, while in his Heptaplus, he begins with water and moves to
fire. In the former it is an emanationist schema, beginning in the angelic realm
of eternality and spreading down into the celestial world of temporality. In the
latter it seems to be more of a map of Proclean return, showing the way from
the world of transience and change to the world of permanence and eternal
light; at that point, it is the heavenly hierarchy of angels, as cast in his Oration,
that takes over. In all cases, the heavens act as a nodal point that in the first
case allows for creation, and in the latter two cases allows for transcendence
from creation. This, too, is similar to Alemanno’s linkage of the heavens to tohu
and bohu as nodal starting points that can be looked to by one who contem-
plates from within time in order to attempt to grasp that which is beyond time.
Also like Alemanno, Pico seems to relate the hylomorphic sense of the heav-
ens as the beginning of creation to tohu and bohu as a syzygistic dualism that
allows for creation. Pico’s transition from heavenly language and his clarifica-
tion of tohu and bohu comes in the second chapter of the first exposition of the
Heptaplus, where he compares the Vulgate, the Septuagint, and those whom
he guardedly calls “the Hebrews.” Like his concept of shamayim, which is not
explicitly linked to Kabbalah in the Heptaplus but which is kabbalistically illu-
minated by his Conclusiones, here too, there seems to be an inexplicit refer-
ence to Kabbalah that gets more explicitly explained in philosophical terms.
The key here to understanding Pico’s philosophically cast understanding of a
kabbalistic textual tradition on tohu and bohu indeed lies with “the Hebrews,”
with whom Pico ultimately sides.
Pico notes that while Jerome had translated the words tohu and bohu as
“inanis et vacua,” i.e., “void and empty,” the Septuagint resorts to terms that
Pico renders into Latin as “invisibilis et incomposita,” i.e., “invisible and
disordered.”13 According to Pico, all of these terms are limited in their applica-
tion. This is not due to an improper rendering into Latin or Greek, for despite
Pico’s linguistic analysis, his goal is not to rectify error due to improper transla-
tion. Rather, he is more concerned with the bifurcation of the concepts of tohu

13 Heptaplus, 86.
Edifices and days 121

and bohu, which he wants to allegorize in terms of the Platonized notions of

form and matter. As Crofton Black has noted, Pico’s goal is “to contribute to an
allegorical identification of a phrase in the Genesis account (‘inanis et vacua’)
with a philosophical doctrine concerning the reception of form by matter.”14
Pico’s project is more philosophical than it is philological. In this regard, he
states that all of these terms utilized by the Vulgate and the Septuagint are suit-
able for some type of hylic matter that is unshaped; but they are limited in that
they all point to that selfsame element that is hylic matter. Pico observes
that the Hebrew scholars take an altogether different approach in which the
two terms are not synonymous; this is an approach toward which he himself
seems to lean.
This approach of Pico’s unnamed Hebrew scholars is more of a hylomor-
phically dualist account of the beginning of creation, in which the state of
the earth is similar to the state of the heavens as indicated by their name.
In order to moor this idea, we should recall that the Bahir writes concerning
the biblical verse that the earth was tohu and bohu (Genesis 1:2): “What is tohu?
This is something that astounds people. And what is bohu? This is something
that was formerly tohu and returned to bohu; it is something that has real sub-
stance, as it is written: bo hu, i.e., ‘there is something in it.’ ”15 We should also
recall the approach of Nahmanides, who seems to expand directly upon the
Bahiric formulation by marking tohu as astonishing hyle, and bohu, i.e., bo hu
(that in which there is something) as form. In this articulation of the Bahir
as expressed through Nahmanides, tohu and bohu are distinct, and tohu is
astounding, whereas bohu is more tangible.
Pico takes a similar approach, seemingly based on this passage from the Bahir,
and also possibly influenced by Nahmanides.16 He writes that tohu is some-
thing interpreted by his unnamed Hebrews as “senseless and dumb . . . because
when we strain for an understanding of it, it leaves us dumb.”17 Though he does

14 Black Pico’s Heptaplus, 93.

15 Bahir 1:2: ‫ שהיתה‬,‫ ומאי בהו‬.‫ דבר המתהה בני אדם‬,‫ ומאי תהו‬.‫ שכבר היתה‬,‫מאי משמע היתה‬
.‫ דכתיב בו הוא‬,‫ דבר שיש בו ממש‬,‫תהו וחזרה בהו‬
16 For Nahmanides’ influence on Pico’s Heptaplus, see Ogren, “The Forty-Nine Gates
of Wisdom as Forty-Nine Ways to Christ: Giovanni Pico della Mirandola’s Heptaplus
and Nahmanidean Kabbalah,” Rinascimento: Rivista dell’Istituto Nazionale di Studi sul
Rinascimento vol. xlix (2009): 27–43.
17 Heptaplus, 87. This is in contrast to Origen, who, as Moshe Idel has pointed out to me in
conversation, was influenced by rabbinic tradition and may have influenced Pico, but
here states (as related by Calcidius): “Terra autem stupida quadem admiratione,” i.e., the
earth itself was dumbfounded and in a kind of admiration. For more on this, see Hahn,
Tohu va-Vohu 199, fn. 71.
122 CHAPTER 6

not mention any explicit source, this is an exact parallel to the Bahiric idea
of tohu as “something that astounds people,” an idea that is also parroted by
Nahmanides. Pico goes on to explain that for his Hebrew scholars, in contra-
distinction to tohu, bohu is not so astounding, as it is the beginning of sensible
form. “If we translate word for word,” Pico writes, “bohu is the same as to say
‘there is in it’ or ‘something is in it.’ ”18 Just as his dumbfounding tohu is dumb-
foundingly parallel to that of the Bahir and of Nahmanides, Pico’s bohu, too,
is an exact extrapolation of the Bahiric idea, echoed again in Nahmanides, of
bohu as “something that has real substance.” Indeed, even the play on words
of bo-hu, to signify “there is something in it” is the same. Thus, given the known
influence that both the Bahir and Nahmanides had upon Pico, it is likely that
these are amongst the texts that he had in mind when mentioning his “Hebrew
scholars” in relation to tohu and bohu as formless hyle and developmental
form. This is so even though he does not mention them by name, and even
if the ideas were filtered through the likes of Recanati, who quotes the Bahir
passage at length.
The lack of explicit mention of the Bahir, of Nahmanides, or of Recanati
as positive proof-texts here comes as no surprise. Less than two years prior to
Pico’s usage of the kabbalistic passage here, a Church commission condemned
thirteen of Pico’s famed nine-hundred theses, one of which was that “There
is no science that assures us more of the divinity of Christ than magic and
Cabala.”19 The condemnation of these theses was still in effect at the time
that Pico was writing the Heptaplus, and may account for his euphemistic
term “Hebrews” to denote kabbalistic texts. Thus, the unnamed usage of the
kabbalistic Bahir, whether filtered through the kabbalistic commentaries of
Nahmanides and Recanati or not, is not so astounding. What is perhaps more
astounding is Pico’s follow-up to this discussion: “If we follow this interpreta-
tion,” he writes, “we shall understand the rudimentary form of substance, as
well as its potentiality, to be in the earth.” He continues: “Not only did Albert
and many of the Peripatetics believe this, but also the ancient Hebrews, as we
see clearly from the testimony of the ancient Simeon.”20 Here Pico is coupling
Albertus Magnus and Aristotelian philosophy with a certain ancient Hebrew
named Simeon.
This last character mentioned is most probably Shimon bar Yohai, and the
reference is probably a very thinly veiled allusion to the Zohar. Indeed, Pico

18 Heptaplus, 87.
19 Farmer 496: “Nulla est scientia quae nos magis certificet de divinitate Christi quam magia
et cabala.”
20 Heptaplus, 87.
Edifices and days 123

seems to be tacitly referencing ideas as expressed in the following Zoharic pas-

sage, which would have at least partially been available to him in the commen-
tary of Recanati:

Tohu is a place in which there is no color and no form, and it is not

included at all in the secret of form. Now it is with form, and when people
look at it, it has no form at all. Everything has a garment that it wears,
except for this (i.e., tohu). Bohu already has an image and a form: it is the
stones that are embedded within the engraving of tohu. These come out
from within the engraving in which they are embedded, and from there
they draw a benefit to the world in the image of a garment. They draw the
benefit from above to below, and it is hidden from below to above.21

Similar to the Bahiric passage utilized by Pico, this passage from the Zohar sets
tohu apart from bohu in that the former is formless and the latter has form.
This is unlike the Vulgate and the Septuagint, which each speak of a dual form-
lessness that is “void and empty” in the case of the former and “invisible and
disordered” in the case of the latter. According to Pico, in both cases, these
dual referents point to hylic matter. In the case of the Zohar and the Bahir,
however, the referents are split. Tohu refers to the unfathomable, formless hyle
that begins creation, while bohu refers to the form that begins to create and to
develop form out of the beginning that is tohu. In a significant turn, the Zoharic
passage here notes that that form is the stones that are embedded within tohu.
The influence of Pico’s “ancient Simeon” of the Zohar in his formulation of
tohu as formlessness that precedes bohu as form is buttressed by the following
statement in his Conclusiones: “When you hear that the Cabalists posit form-
lessness in Teshuvah [i.e., ‘repentance,’ or ‘return’], by formlessness understand
antecedence to form, not privation of it.”22 Just as for the Zohar, formlessness
here is not a lack of form, but is rather the ground in which form is embed-
ded. Chaim Wirszubski has importantly noted that Pico’s Latin rendering of
“formlessness” and “form” here, i.e., informe et formabile, “is a frequent, even
if not exclusive, rendering of tohu wa-bohu.”23 Thus, tohu as an antecedent to
bohu can be seen in a hypostatic, emanatory light. Moreover, it should be noted

21 Zohar I:16a: ‫ השתא איהו‬,‫ ולא אתכליל ברזא דדיוקנא‬,‫תה"ו אתר דלית ביה גוון ולא דיוקנא‬
,‫ בה"ו‬.‫ לכלא אית לבושא לאתלבשא בר האי‬.‫ כד מתסכלן ביה לית ליה דיוקנא כלל‬,‫בדיוקנא‬
‫ ומתמן‬.‫ נפקי גו גליפא דמשקען תמן‬,‫ אבנין משקעין גו גליפא דתהו‬:‫להאי אית ליה ציורא ודיוקנא‬
.‫ משכי תועלתא מעילא לתתא וסלקא מתתא לעילא‬,‫ בציורא דלבושא‬,‫משכי תועלתא לעלמא‬
22 Farmer, 533.
23 Wirszubski, Pico’s Encounter, 176.
124 CHAPTER 6

that in kabbalistic parlance, Teshuvah is a common designation for the third

sefirah of Binah as the upper Teshuvah, and for the tenth sefirah of Malkhut as
the lower Teshuvah. It is thus synonymous with these two sefirot as the upper
and lower tohu, in that they are the upper and lower formless receptacles that
are filled with the form of that which ontically precedes them.
The hypostatic notion of Teshuvah and its placement in both Binah and
Malkhut would have been known to Pico by another Zoharic passage as fil-
tered through Recanati, regarding the repentance of Israel: “Come and see:
even the Assembly of Israel, which is Malkhut, is called Teshuvah, and if you
should say that it is the upper Teshuvah, which is Binah, [know] that this is
not found in every place.”24 Though the goal of the Zohar here is to establish
the primacy of Malkhut as Teshuvah for Israel specifically, it does not deny the
upper Teshuvah, and in fact presents a double understanding of an upper and
a lower Teshuvah.
This doubly hypostatic understanding of Teshuvah is highly significant for
Pico, for whom Teshuvah as formlessness antecedes that which is formation.
Even though in his Conclusiones Pico does not explicitly mention a dual under-
standing of Teshuvah, in his Heptaplus he does offer a seventh chapter, at the
end of each exposition, which in some way discusses a return to Christ. Each
of these is embedded within a book that has seven expositions, the final of
which is a “sabbatical exposition” of return that explicitly treats of “the felicity
of creatures and their return to God.”25 Thus, even though Pico does not men-
tion it, a dual process of Teshuvah is conceivably at play.
This notion of Teshuvah, or return to Christ as every seventh chapter of each
of the seven expositions, and then again as the final felicity of eternal life in the
larger, seventh, sabbatical exposition seems to have deliberate resonance with
the cosmic notions of shmittot and yovelot that, as we have seen, also play a
prominent role in Alemanno’s conceptualizations of the beginnings (and end-
ings) of time.26 This becomes especially apparent with the final, fiftieth chap-
ter within the work, which is appended after the exposition on felicitas, and
which itself is actually a short exposition dedicated entirely to a kabbalistic

24 Recanati, Commentary on Numbers, 17: ‫תא חזי אפילו כנסת ישראל תשובה אקרי ואי תימא‬
.‫תשובה עילאה בכל אתרא לא שכיח‬
25 Heptaplus, 86.
26 For a detailed exploration of this theme, see Ogren, “The Forty-Nine Gates of Wisdom as
Forty-Nine Ways to Christ;” see also Brian Copenhaver, “Giovanni Pico della Mirandola”,
The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Summer 2012 Edition), Edward N. Zalta
(ed.), URL = <http://plato.stanford.edu/archives/sum2012/entries/pico-della-mirandola/>,
especially the section entitled “Works and Reputation.”
Edifices and days 125

reading of Bereshit, discussed in chapter two of this present book. In this sense
it is a Teshuvah, or a return, to the very beginning.
But the kabbalistic notion of cosmic cycles is not a novelty of the Heptaplus.
In fact, in his earlier Commento, Pico writes:

I have said that all the Platonists agree in believing that the world is
eternal. Atticus, Plutarch, and the others who say that this present order
of the world had a beginning do not mean that before this world noth-
ing else existed except God, as our Catholic Church holds; rather, they
believe that before this orderly motion of the heavens and the present
arrangement of earthly things, there existed a disorderly and tumultu-
ous motion, ruled by a soul which was sick and wicked. And they would
concede that there could thus have been brought from the confusion
of chaos to order infinite times, and returned to chaos infinite times.
This is rather like the view of the Talmudists who were asked, “What has
God been doing throughout eternity?” and replied, “Creating worlds and
then destroying them again.”27 By following the precepts of the Cabalists,
however, one can give to the Talmudists’ words a meaning that is both
truer and more decorous.28

According to this narrative, the Greeks mentioned by Pico held that before the
beginning there was confusion and chaos, and the world will return to con-
fusion and chaos. This allows for an idea of infinite creation as a process of
ordering, but prior to that ordering, confusion and chaos is ruled by a soul that
is “sick and wicked.” The Talmudic rabbis introduce God into the picture as the
creator and destroyer, but it is only the Kabbalists who give the Talmudic idea
a sense of true meaning. Precisely what this meaning is, Pico does not divulge,
and we can only conjecture as based on his Heptaplus that it has to do with a

27 Bereshit Rabbah 3:7, 9:2; Kohelet Rabbah 3:13.

28 Commentary, 83; Commento, 16–17: Habbiamo ditto tutti e’ platonici convenire in questo,
che il mondo sia eterno peroché e Attico, e Plutarco, e li altri che vogliono che questo
ordina presente del mondo havessi principio, non vogliono però, che innanzi a
questo nulla altro fussi che Dio, come pone la nostra catholica Chiesa, ma credono
inanzi a questo ordinate moto del cielo, e presente dispositione delle cose mondane,
essere stato uno inordinate moto e tumultuario, retto da una anima informe e prava, e
così concederebbono essere stati infiniti mondi, perché infinite volte el mondo è suto
dalla confusione del chaos in ordine redotto, e infinite volte è in quello ritornato, ad che
pare concordi la openione de’ Talmutisti, li quali domandano che faceva Dio ab eterno, e
respondono che creava mondi, e poi li guastava, quantunque, seguendo la openione de’
Cabalisti, alle loro parole si possa dare più conveniente senso.
126 CHAPTER 6

return to Christ as an ultimate and final sense of jubilation in the Jubilee, but
also as the beginning of the All. In this sense, even though there is cyclicality, it
is not that confusion and chaos as ruled by a sick and wicked soul precede and
follow this world. Rather, the world is preceded and followed by God alone,
and through the benevolence of Christ, His beginning, which is also His end-
ing, continually and repeatedly manifests. This, for Pico, is the true meaning
of the eternal return, or Teshuvah, which, as we have seen for the Zohar as
brought forth by Recanati and may thus have been known to Pico, is related to
the sefirotic structure.
The workings of these cycles not only in return, but also in creating the
beginning, are perhaps best understood through the very duality of Teshuvah
that characterizes Malkhut and Binah as governed by the Zoharic text brought
by Recanati. Indeed, the duality there seems to imply not only a double return,
but also its opposite, i.e., a double formation. One of these processes of for-
mation is liminally temporal and material, and is related to the material cre-
ation of the world out of formless hyle. In this process of formation, Malkhut
as Teshuvah, or as tohu, antecedes formation by form in bohu. The last sefirotic
emanation gives rise to the first order of time and of creation. This relates to
the lower Teshuvah, to which Israel, or for Pico, the faithful, can turn in an
attempt to return to the antecedent that is not tinged by privation, but is rather
pristine. This is represented in time by the earthly Sabbath that is somehow
beyond time.
The second process of formation is completely atemporal; like Alemanno’s
formulation, it is a protocreative form of emanation related to the sefirotic
realm itself. This is the upper Teshuvah that is an antecedent. But this, then,
raises the question: an antecedent to what? In order to answer this, we need
to return to the previously mentioned formal stones embedded within form-
less tohu, which were mentioned in the passage that may have been the base
of Pico’s “ancient Simeon” as invoked in the Heptaplus. Within that passage,
the stones are bohu; they are the stones of the building that can be under-
stood to be the six lower sefirot under Binah, which itself is tohu. Parallel to
Alemanno’s formulation as exposited above, here the stones are the six days
of the week between the upper and lower Sabbaths of Binah and Malkhut.
And just as there are two Sabbaths, or two forms of Teshuvah or tohu, so
too are there two sets of weekdays, or two collections of building materi-
als under Teshuvah, or two forms of bohu. These are the temporal weekdays
vs. the six sefirotic days between Binah and Malkhut, the material of cre-
ation vs. the stones that are those selfsame sefirot, or put differently, hylic
matter vs. hypostatic bohu. This idea is Platonically drawn out by Pico in his
Commento, where he states:
Edifices and days 127

If a builder builds a house, the Platonists would say that there are two
houses; one intelligible, the one which the builder has in his mind, and
the other sensible, the one which he has constructed out of marble or
stone, expressing as fully as he can in that material the form which he has
conceived within himself.29

Pico later goes on to clarify:

Just as a house has two kinds of being, one in the builder’s conception of
it, the other in its physical material, such as stones, timbers, and the like
(the former is called its ideal being, and the latter its natural being), so
it is with all the other things that have their ideal being inside the First
Mind, and their natural being outside it.30

Kabbalistically cast, ideal being inside the First Mind takes expression in the
form of the six sefirot; “their natural being outside it” is the six days of creation
in the parlance of temporal order, or the stones that are the building blocks of
creation in the parlance of the material order of construction. The ideal order
is embedded within the divine mind yet at the same time hypostatically ema-
nates from it, while the natural order mirrors the divine ideal order, and in so
doing, participates in it.
The evidence that Pico was influenced by this Platonic concept of the
ideal order as kabbalistically cast is clear, for he explicitly mentions it in
his Conclusiones: “By the six days of creation we should understand the six
extremities of the edifice proceeding from Bereshit, just as cedars proceed from
Lebanon.”31 Here, the metaphors of the days of the week and of the extremities
of the edifice are not coincidental. They are embedded within Pico’s Platonic
concept of the two orders, and both are embedded in the Zohar as well. In
addition, they have strong resonance with the exegesis of Alemanno, and in
light of the above explanations, it can be understood that these six days and six

29 Commentary on a Canzone, 82; Commento sopra una canzone, 14–15: Se uno artifice edifica
una casa, diranno essere dua case, una intelligibile, che ha l’artefice nella mente, un’altra
sensibile, che è quella che da esso artifice è composta, o di marmo, o di pietre, o di altro,
esprimendo quanto può in quella materia la forma che in sé ha concetta.
30 Commentary on a Canzone, 117; Commento sopra una canzone, 60: Come la casa ha dua
esseri, uno nella Idea sua, nella mente dello artefice, l’altro nella materia, come sono le
pietre, e legni, e simili cose, e quello primo si chiama essere Ideale, e questo essere natu-
rale, così è di tutte l’altre cose le quali hanno in quella prima mente lo essere Ideale, e
fuora di quella el loro essere naturale.
31 Farmer, 349.
128 CHAPTER 6

extremities relate to the process of creation through the proto-temporal and

proto-formal building blocks of the sefirot.
But what are we to make of the cedars of Lebanon? The Zohar, as quoted
by Recanati, poses this precise question: “Who are these cedars of Lebanon?”
It goes on to answer: “These are the six supernal days, as it is said: The cedars
of Lebanon which He planted [Psalm 104:16].”32 This is further clarified by a pas-
sage that Wirszubski claims may be at the heart of the matter:

Rabbi Yose asked him [i.e., Rabbi Simeon]: “Who are these six days of
Bereshit about which we are learning? He replied: They are as it is written:
The cedars of Lebanon which He planted [Psalm 104:16]. Just as those cedars
come forth from Lebanon, so those six days come forth from Bereshit.
And these six supernal days are specified in the verse: Yours, O Lord, are
the greatness [Gedulah], and the power [Gevurah], and the glory [Tiferet],
and the victory [Netzah], and the majesty [Hod]; for all [Kol, a designation
for Yesod] that is in the heavens and the on earth is Yours [1 Chronicles
29:11]. [Recanati adds:] He [i.e., Simeon] hinted that their emanation is
from Wisdom [Hokhmah], which is called “Beginning” [Reshit].33

Here the Zohar is offering a common theosophical reading of 1 Chronicles

29:11,34 which it sees as outlining the sefirot of Gedulah, Gevurah, Tiferet,
Netzah, Hod and Yesod as the six supernal days of the beginning of creation,
i.e., of Bereshit. Since they are “of Bereshit,” Recanati sees them as emanating
from the sefirah discussed at length in the first part of this book, which is des-
ignated Reshit, i.e., Hokhmah. But what of Binah and of Malkhut? These two
feminine aspects of the godhead seem to be neglected here. The first is skipped
over for Hokhmah as the beginning, while the second is not counted amongst
the six supernal days.
One possible answer to this exclusion, which may shed light on the over-
all idea of the cedars of Lebanon as expressed in the Zohar, relates back to

32 Zohar I:35a, quoted in Recanati, Commentary on Genesis, 72: ‫מאן אינון ארזי לבנון אינון‬
.‫שיתא יומין עילאין דקאמרן ארזי לבנון אשר נטע‬
33 Zohar I:31a, quoted in Recanati, Commentary on Genesis, 57: ‫ספר הזוהר [בראשית‬
‫ אמר ליה היינו‬.‫ רבי יוסי שאיל ליה ואמר האי ששת ימי בראשית דקא תנינן מאי אינון‬:]'‫ל"א א‬
‫ כמה דאילין ארזין נפקין מלבנון הכי נמי אינון שיתא יומין נפקין מן‬.‫ ארזי לבנון אשר נטע‬:‫דכתיב‬
‫ רמז כי אצילותם מן‬.'‫ לך יי' הגדולה והגבורה וגומ‬:‫ ואלין שיתא קרא פריש לון דכתיב‬.‫בראשית‬
.‫ ;החכמה הנקראת ראשית‬See also Wirszubski, Pico’s Encounter, 29.
34 According to Scholem (Origins, 263), this theosophical reading of 1 Chronicles 29:11 begins
with Isaac the Blind.
Edifices and days 129

the edifice proceeding from Bereshit as mentioned by Pico, and as connected

to his Platonic concept of two orders of edifice: one ideal and one natural.
In another section of the Zohar it is written that “the secret of the matter is
that the lower inherits the upper; both are as one.” It goes on to explain: “This
is bet,” i.e., the first letter of Bereshit, which also means ‘house,’ “as it is written:
Through wisdom a house is built [Proverbs 24:3], and also: King Solomon made
himself a pavilion from the trees of Lebanon [Song of Songs 3:9].”35 The letter bet
of Bereshit, which, as we have seen in chapter two above, was of great impor-
tance to Pico, numerically equals two, which here stands for the two feminine
sefirot excluded in the discussion above, namely, Binah and Malkhut.36 In this
sense, it stands for the dual nature not only of the six sefirot vs. the days or the
building, but also of an upper and lower Sabbath, womb, formless hyle, tohu, or
Garden of Eden, as represented by Binah and Malkhut. These are all receptive
elements that both collect active elements and give birth to them in a trans-
formed state. In the case of the Sabbath, it is the transformation of the days of
the week through the transformative power of rest; in the case of the womb,
it is the reception of seed and the birth of life; in the case of formless hyle, it
is the creation of existents through the application of form; and in the case of
tohu, it is the creation of the cosmos through bohu.
But what about the Garden of Eden? In this case, it is the planting of trees
in fertile ground, which then act as the life giving forces of all of creation. Pico
gives this idea of the garden a Platonic reading in his Commento, discussing
the birth of love from Penia and Poros in the garden of Jove, as recounted by
Diotima in Plato’s Symposium.37 He writes:

In this passage . . . the unformed substance is called the “gardens of Jove”

because the Ideas are planted in it, like trees in a garden. This is why the
ancients called the Angelic Mind, adorned with the Ideas, “paradise”
(which is a Greek word meaning what “giardino” means to us), and why
they referred to people as being “in paradise” if they lived a completely
non-physical intellectual life, and, having already risen above human

35 Zohar I:29a: ‫ תרויהו כחד והינו בי"ת דכתיב בחכמה יבנה‬,‫ורזא דמלה דירתא תתאה לעלאה‬
.‫ כתיב אפריון עשה לו המלך שלמה מעצי הלבנון‬.‫בית‬
36 For more on this, see the insightful commentary of Daniel Matt, The Zohar, volume
one, 170.
37 Symposium 203b–c; compare to Marsilio Ficino, De Amore VI.7. Sears Jayne notes that
prior to this time, “the traditional interpretation of this episode had been that given by
Eusebius (De praeparatio evangelica XII.6) identifying it as an allegory of the seduction of
Eve by Satan in the Garden of Eden” (Commentary, 202, fn. 126).
130 CHAPTER 6

nature and become like angels, lived on contemplation alone. It is to this

contemplative life and its eternal happiness that Zoroaster exhorts us
when he exclaims, “Seek ye, seek ye, paradise!” The term “paradise” has
been borrowed by Christian theologians to mean, in addition, the physi-
cal place, that is, the highest heaven, which is the dwelling or home of the
blessed; their bliss consists entirely in contemplation, in the exercise of
the intellect . . . The “gardens of Jove,” therefore, represent the unformed
substance of the Angelic Mind.38

In this telling commentary, Pico brings together Greek mythology with

Christian theology. But perhaps more importantly for the topic at hand, he
juxtaposes Platonic Ideas with plants through the medium of the garden, or
paradise. This is an unformed area that provides fertile ground for the Ideas,
without which the Ideas would not be able to take root and grow. Moreover, for
Pico, it is a region for contemplation and for bliss. Thus, on the sefirotic level,
it seems to be related to tohu as Understanding and as Return. The former is
a medium that makes known the Wisdom of God; the latter is a medium that
allows the contemplative individual to reach a sense of felicitas.
On the sefirotic level, the plantings relate back to the trees of Lebanon, which
are mentioned in the Zohar in connection to the bet of Bereshit. As we recall,
this is related to the semantic play of bet as “house,” or “edifice,” which evokes
the six formal stones of the building that give form to the unformed mate-
rial that is tohu. Here, however, it is not the stones of bohu as embedded in
tohu that are discussed, but trees as issuing from Lebanon, which is another
name for Hokhmah.39 The building that begins creation is thus of entities
rooted in Hokhmah, which is the beginning, but which are planted in Binah,
which is the supernal Eden from which all of life began.40 Hokhmah plants its

38 Commentary on a Canzone, 108; Commento sopra una canzone, 48: . . . e per che ragione in
quello luogho è chiamata Orti di Giove, cioè, perché in quella sono piantate le Idee, non
altrimenti che li arbori in uno orto, e di qui nasche che essa mente angelica, adornata
già di esse Idee, dalli antichi fu chiamata Paradiso, che è apresso di noi giardino, e coloro
che tutti sono nella vita intellettuale e elevati già sopra la natura humana simili fatti alli
angeli, si nutriscono del contemplare, furono detti essere in Paradiso, alla qual vita con-
templative e felicità eterna essortandoci Zoroastre esclama, cerca cerca el paradiso. La
qual dittione di poi da’ nostri Theologi è stata transferita ad significare etiam esso luogho
corporale, cioè el supremo cielo che è stanza e habitatione delle anime beate, la beatitu-
dine delle quali consiste in esso contemplare, e nella perfettione dello intelletto . . . Sono
adunque li orti di Giove quella essentia informe, e in essa, della perfettione delle Idee.
39 Daniel Matt, The Zohar, volume one, 171, fn. 503.
40 See Bereshit Rabbah, 15:1.
Edifices and days 131

trees in Binah, which then gives birth to the lower six sefirot. This explains the
omission of Binah by the Zohar and Recanati in the assertion that the six sefirot
from Gedulah to Yesod emanate from Hokhmah. Binah, in this case, is necessary
and important, but it acts as a liminal, transitional point of instigated begin-
ning rather than as an active point of instigative beginning. Moreover, in line
with the dual structure in which “the lower inherits the upper” and “both are
as one,” the beginning does not stop there. Malkhut as the lower Eden receives
the plantings that are the lower sefirot from the soil of Binah, inheriting them
from it and transforming them into the beginnings of life. The two are thus
connected “as one,” as is the entire structure.
It is not entirely clear whether Pico was aware of such a sefirotic reading,
and indeed, the passage in his Commento that discusses the gardens of Jove
in relation to paradise invokes Zoroaster, but it does not mention either the
Kabbalists or the Sefirot. Nevertheless, Pico’s explicitly kabbalistic mention in
his Conclusiones of Bereshit in relation to an edifice, to the six days of creation,
and to the cedars of Lebanon is certainly suggestive. So is his following conclu-
sion concerning the supernal Eden, which, possibly reflecting back upon the
passage from the Commento, he explicitly calls paradise: “It is more correctly
said that paradise is the whole edifice than that it is the tenth; and in its middle
is set the great Adam, who is Tiferet.”41 Here “paradise” relates to the building,
and Pico unambiguously connects it to the Sefirot. But here, Pico is advocating
for a unified picture of paradise as the whole sefirotic edifice. Pico’s project is
thus just like the above passage from the Zohar, in which the upper and the
lower “are as one” through the secret of the bet, which is the house.
For Pico, however, unity comes through the great Adam of Tiferet, who, for
him, is Christ. This is clear from later conclusions, in which Pico equates “the
sun to the sixth” sefirah of Tiferet, and in which he then claims that “the full sun
was in the true Messiah, who was Jesus.”42 In the Zoharic imagery, the upper
mother of Binah and the lower mother of Malkhut unify in order to liminally
encompass the entire edifice; in Pico’s imagery, Jesus as Tif’eret becomes the
core of the edifice. One possible reading is that the feminine elements repre-
sent tohu, which gives birth to creation, while Jesus as Tif’eret represents bohu,
which unifies that creation by giving it both substance and fullness. It is in this
regard that Pico exhorts concerning Christ, whom he places in the center on
the fourth day: “Behold the fullness of time.”43 By laying emphasis upon Jesus,
Pico is not only giving such kabbalistic ideas a Christological interpretation,

41 Farmer, 351.
42 Farmer, 541.
43 Heptaplus, 157.
132 CHAPTER 6

he is moving the focus from the incomplete feminine periphery to the com-
pleted masculine center. Herein Pico displays a gendered notion of lack as dis-
tinctly feminine.44
Yet Pico does not entirely abandon the encompassing feminine womb of
liminality. In fact, in his earlier Conclusiones, he mentions the encompassing
green line that is tohu, and though he neither mentions BT Hagigah 12a in this
context nor does he seem to be aware of it, his reading is very similar to that of
Alemanno. There Pico writes: “When Solomon says in his prayer in the Book
of Kings, Hear O heaven [1 Kings 8:32; 8:34; 8:36; 8:39], by heaven we should
understand the green line that circles the universe.”45 Wirszubski has sug-
gested that Pico probably drew this idea from Joseph ben Abraham ibn Waqar’s
Sefer ha-Shorashim, which was available to Pico in Latin translation and
in which “green line” is directly linked to tohu.46 There, defining terms from
outside of Scripture, ibn Waqar writes: “Green line: Binah. And our Rabbis of
blessed memory said: ‘Tohu is a green line that encompasses the entire world’
(Hagigah 12a); that is to say, it is Binah, which encompasses the building (ha-
binyan).47 In another passage, ibn Waqar writes that “tohu is a green line and
it is Teshuvah.”48
Of significance in ibn Waqar’s account is the linkage of the green line as tohu
back to the building through Binah, and its specific connection to Teshuvah.
If this is indeed the text that lies at the base of Pico’s statement regarding the
green line that encompasses the universe, then this statement seems to com-
plete the hermeneutical circle, leading back, or “returning,” so-to-speak, to
the edifice that is central to Pico’s overall exegesis of tohu and bohu. Pico also
clearly links the green line to heaven in his conclusion, thereby demonstrating
its inherent liminality in relation to the liminality that he has shown of the
heavens.

44  For more on this notion in medieval Platonism, see the careful analysis of Sarah Pessin,
“Loss, Presence, and Gabirol’s Desire: Medieval Jewish Philosophy and the Possibility of a
Feminist Ground,” in Women and Gender in Jewish Philosophy, ed. Hava Tirosh-Samuelson
(Bloomington and Indianapolis: Indiana University Press, 2004), 27–50.
45 Farmer, 349.
46 Wirszubski, Pico’s Encounter, 26. Wirszubski notes that the Latin translation of ibn Waqar’s
work in cod. Vat. Ebr. 190, fol. 258v, which is entitled Liber de Radicibus, the phrase is ren-
dered “informe est linea viridis,” where “informe,” i.e., “formlessness,” typically relates to
the biblical tohu.
47 Rabbi Joseph ben Abraham ibn Waqar, Principles of the Qabbalah, edited from Hebrew
and Arabic manuscripts by P.B. Fenton, (Los Angeles: Cherub Press, 2004), 167: .‫קו ירוק‬
.‫ ר"ל בינה שמקפת הבנין‬,)‫ [תהו זה] קו ירוק מקיף כל העולם (חגיגה יב ע"א‬:‫ ואמרו רז"ל‬.‫בינה‬
48 Ibid., 172: .‫ הוא קו ירוק הוא התשובה‬.‫תהו‬
Edifices and days 133

In yet another conclusion, Pico continues with the subject of the green
line and its elusive yet unifying nature, writing: “What the Cabalists say, that
a green line circles the universe, speaks appropriately to the final conclusion
that I stated from the mind of Porphyry.”49 That final conclusion related to the
thought of Porphyry is as follows:

God is everywhere because he is nowhere, the intellect is everywhere

because it is nowhere, the soul is everywhere because it is nowhere. But
God is everywhere and nowhere in respect to all things that are after him.
The intellect is indeed in God, but is everywhere and nowhere in respect
to those things that are after it. The soul is in the intellect and God, but is
everywhere and nowhere in respect to the body.50

Here, the three Plotinian hypostases of God, the intellect and the soul are
involved in a paradoxical syzygy in that they are everywhere and nowhere at
one and the same time. This is qualified, however, by notions of before and after
in regard to God and the intellect, and by the notion of corporeality in regard to
the soul. There is thus a sense of ontic, and perhaps even temporal liminality,
which is also related to the meeting point of soul and body, or form and matter.
Understood in this light, the connection that Pico makes with the kabbalistic
green line that circles the universe should become clear; as tohu, that green
line is a liminal point between being and non-being; it is the unified womb
of Binah and Malkhut, out of which creation emerges. It is the fertile ground
and it is the material for the edifice. It is tohu, and it is given full expression for
the Platonically influenced kabbalists, as we have seen with Alemanno, in the
emanatory processes of bohu, which allows for the coincidence of opposites
that lies at the heart of existence and of creation itself.

49 Farmer, 533.
50 Farmer, 309.
 CHAPTER 7

Ex-Nihilo Creation—Isaac Abravanel on the

Formation of the World, Evil, and Peace

Around the same time that Alemanno was bringing his thoughts on the begin-
ning and on tohu and bohu from formlessness to form and that Pico was cast-
ing similar ideas of the beginning and of tohu in a very different, Christological
form, Isaac Abravanel was treating ideas of tohu and bohu in relation to one
of the cornerstones of his entire system of thought, namely creation ex nihilo.
Indeed, the seriousness with which Isaac Abravanel treats the subject of
tohu and bohu, and the similarity of Abravanel’s approach to those of both
Alemanno and Pico, further attest to the importance that this subject had for
late fifteenth and early sixteenth century exegetes who were active in Italy.
The parallels are indeed striking, though Abravanel mentions neither
Alemanno nor Pico by name. In the case of Alemanno, this is perhaps not sur-
prising, since Abravanel was composing his thoughts on the matter in Venice
around the exact same time that Alemanno was concluding his Einei ha-Edah.
Thus, it is likely that in this specific instance, Abravanel was unfamiliar with
Alemanno’s work.1 In the case of Pico, it is not entirely surprising either, since
Abravanel never mentions his Christian contemporaries, even when he is

1 Though here the timing of Alemanno’s Einei ha-Edah and of Abravanel’s commentary on
Genesis provides Abravanel with the benefit of the doubt, in other cases, he seems to have
freely plagiarized. Perhaps the most famous accusation of plagiarism comes from the son of
his older Spanish contemporary Isaac Arama, who alleges that Abravanel stole ideas from his
father. And as we have seen in chapter three above, certain Zohar passages that Abravanel
utilizes also show up in Arama’s writings. Abravanel is also accused of theft by David ben
Judah Messer Leon. For more on this, see Eric Lawee, Isaac Abarbanel’s Stance Toward
Tradition, 42–43. In the case of Alemanno specifically, Abravanel’s casting of Solomon as an
astral magician and as an ideal Renaissance man within his commentary on I Kings seems
to be strikingly similar to Alemanno’s reading in his earlier Heshek Shlomo. In addition, as
we will see later in this chapter, there is a specific passage that we discussed in chapter one
above from Liber de Causis, which is taken from Abraham Abulafia’s Imrei Shefer and which
shows up in both Alemanno’s writings and in Abravanel’s exegesis. These, among other fac-
tors, have led Moshe Idel to surmise that Abravanel was borrowing from Alemanno without
attributing. For more on this, see Idel, “The Magical and Neoplatonic Interpretations of the
Kabbalah,” 134–136.

© koninklijke brill nv, leiden, ���6 | doi ��.��63/9789004330634_009

Ex-Nihilo Creation 135

clearly drawing from them.2 Be that as it may, no unequivocal evidence exists

indicating influence from Pico, and as was the case with Alemanno in regard
to Pico, Abravanel too would have had better access to the Hebrew sources
that lie at the heart of the discussion. Thus, in this case too, commonality can
perhaps best be chalked up to the use of common sources. For Abravanel on
tohu and bohu, the main kabbalistic exegetical source in common with his
two previously discussed contemporaries would have been the Bahir, as pri-
marily filtered through one of his main sources for kabbalistic lore, namely,
Nahmanides.
Regardless of the lack of clear evidence for direct influence, from the
outset, Abravanel seems to portray a very similar approach to that of Pico.
Like the latter, he argues that there are two main understandings of tohu and
bohu. According to the first understanding, “the two words are synonyms,
which equally teach about the separated absence of reality, and their type is
privation.”3 He goes on to explain that Abraham ibn Ezra, Onkelos, and many
others interpreted these two words to mean “desolation and void,” both equally
pointing to a situation of disorderly emptiness. By contrast, the second under-
standing separates the two terms and gives them two different functions, as
form and matter, respectively.
Even though Pico is not mentioned by name, the parallels here are conspic-
uous. First, Pico’s previously mentioned notation of the Vulgate’s rendition of
tohu and bohu as “void and empty,” and of the Septuagint’s rendition as “invis-
ible and disordered” is similar to Abravanel’s reference to the first, synonymous
reading of tohu and bohu as a chaotic state of “desolation and void.” As we
have discussed in chapter six, for Pico, the Septuagint and the Vulgate teach of
the singular state of hylic privation; according to Abravanel’s rendering of this
reading, the two words simultaneously signify an empty abyss.4 Second, both
Pico and Abravanel point to translations from the original Hebrew as the carri-
ers of the mistaken synonymity. For Pico, the faulty translations are the Vulgate
and the Septuagint, two texts which act as the backbone for Christian under-
standings of the Hebrew Bible. For Abravanel, the mistaken translation is no

2 Perhaps one of the most conspicuous examples of this is Abravanel’s borrowing from
Marsilio Ficino’s translation of the Corpus Hermeticum, and of his Platonic reading of
Hermes Trismegistus. For more on this, see Brian Ogren, “Circularity, the Soul-Vehicle, and
the Renaissance Rebirth of Reincarnation,” Academia 6 (2004): 82–83.
3 Abravanel, Commentary on Genesis, 36: ‫ מורים כאחד על‬,‫תהו ובהו הם שני שמות נרדפים‬
.‫ וסוגם – ההעדר‬,‫המציאות החסר הנבדל‬
4 Abravanel explicitly cites Bereshit Rabbah 2:2 as espousing the idea that tohu derives from the
word tehom, i.e., “abyss.”
136 CHAPTER 7

less than the Aramaic rendition of the Targum Onkelos, which is a key text for
Jewish understandings of the simple meaning of the bible and which, accord-
ing to Abravanel, subsequently misled major commentators like Abraham ibn
Ezra.5 Finally, for both Pico and for Abravanel, the second understanding of
tohu and bohu separates the two terms into the dual philosophical compo-
nents of matter and form, and, according to both Pico and Abravanel, renders
a more accurate reading that is close to the Hebrew text. Moreover, for both
Pico and Abravanel, this “correct” understanding is not merely philosophical;
it is in fact based upon a complex reading of kabbalistic texts.
Unlike Pico, whose kabbalistically philosophical separation of tohu and
bohu refers to the deliberately vague, euphemistic “Hebrews,” Abravanel can-
didly begins by discussing and relying upon Nahmanides, “who separated
between the tohu and the bohu.”6 Abravanel explains that Nahmanides
“interpreted tohu as referring to first matter, which the Greeks called hyle,”
while for Nahmanides, bohu is form, “through which a thing comes to be what
it is.”7 This is in line with Aristotelian hylomorphism. However, in contra-
distinction to Aristotelianism, as well as Platonism, Abravanel points out that
for Nahmanides, tohu was created as the first act of creation, which “the Holy
One, blessed is He, then dressed in form and made into bohu.”8 According
to this reading, tohu is the very beginning of creation. In stark contrast to
the Aristotelian idea of the eternally hylomorphic move from potentiality
into actuality, and the Platonic idea of temporal formation from atemporally
unformed matter, this Nahmanidean reading asserts that tohu itself, as the
beginning of creation itself, is created ex nihilo.
This subtle distinction is highly important to Abravanel. Throughout his
writings, Abravanel indeed professes the composite nature of reality, claim-
ing with Aristotle and Plato that hylic matter exists alongside divine form.
Nevertheless, For Abravanel, the idea of creation ex nihilo stands at the pin-
nacle of all truth claims in regard to existence. As Seymour Feldman has care-
fully noted, Abravanel wrote more on this topic than any other, dedicating two
full treatises to it, as well as an ample portion of his detailed commentary on

5 Indeed, Onkelos translates the phrase as "‫"צדיא וריקניא‬, which literally means “desolation
and void,” and ibn Ezra defers to Onkelos, writing: “That which is correct is that which the
Aramaic translator said” ("‫)"הנכון כאשר אמר המתרגם ארמית‬.
6 Abravanel, Commentary on Genesis, 36: .‫ שהבדיל בין התהו ובין הבהו‬,‫והדרך השני הוא להרמב"ן‬
7 Ibid.: ,‫ כלומר בו הוא‬,‫ופירש בהו על הצורה‬. . . ‫ופירש תהו על החומר הראשון שקראו היוונים היולי‬
.‫שבה יהיה הדבר מה שיהיה‬
8 Ibid.: .‫והלביש הקדוש ברוך הוא אחר כך בו צורה ועשה אותו בהו‬
Ex-Nihilo Creation 137

Genesis.9 Feldman goes on to explain that for Abravanel, creation ex nihilo

is a fundamental tenet of Judaism, and if Abravanel would have believed in
creedal axioms, one most certainly would have been the ex nihilo creation of
the ­universe.10 Indeed, at the outset of his commentary on Genesis, Abravanel
goes so far as to write that “we should not talk to anyone who denies the
beginnings.”11 For Abravanel, such beginnings came out of nothing, even if
tohu as hyle had an extremely important role to play in the process of bringing
something out of that nothing.
The complex relationship of tohu to nothingness and to creation ex nihilo
relates to “the nothing of being-not” vs. “the nothing of not-being” charac-
terized by the likes of Alemanno’s efes and ayin, as explained in chapter five
above. For Abravanel, the distinctions in his commentary on Genesis seem
to be of a creation lo-mi-davar, i.e., “from no-thing,” vs. mi-lo, i.e., “from noth-
ing.” As with Alemanno’s efes, Abravanel’s lo-mi-davar designates a creation
from complete and total lack, from a state of being beyond being, and even
beyond being a state. This is a state prior to tohu. “We believe that the world
came into being lo-mi-davar, i.e., from no-thing and after complete privation,”
Abravanel writes. He continues: “Thus, we should not suppose that there was
hylic matter prior to the first creation.”12 Nevertheless, all was formed mi-lo, i.e.,
“from nothing,” which is the hylic ground of everything.
This concept of mi-lo is similar to Alemanno’s ayin, though it is probably
based on Nahmanides’ assertion “that the tohu is after the naught (ha-efes), but
it is not (eineno) a thing.”13 Here we see a link with the concepts of efes and ayin
as discussed in chapter five as related to Alemanno but probably ultimately
stemming here from the Nahmanidean tradition. For Abravanel, the language
still hinges on lo, i.e., “no,” but the connection to Nahmanides is clear. Indeed, in
order to display this aspect of creation ex nihilo that relates to both the “noth-
ing of being-not” and the “nothing of not-being,” Abravanel has recourse to
the very passage from Sefer Yetzirah that is quoted by Nahmanides in the same
regard: “[God] made reality from tohu; He made it mi-lo, i.e., from nothing:

9 Feldman, Philosophy in a Time of Crisis, 41. These two treatises are Mif’alot Elohim and
Shamayim Hadashim.
10 Ibid.
11 Abravanel, Commentary on Genesis, 2: .‫אין לנו לדבר עם מי שיכחיש ההתחלות‬
12 Ibid., 3: ‫ ואין לנו אם כן‬.‫ אבל אחרי ההעדר הגמור‬,‫אנחנו נאמין שנתהווה העולם לא מדבר‬
.‫ להניח היולי קודם בבריאה הראשונה‬This idea of creation out of complete privation, or
total emptiness, is repeated often in Abravanel’s Mif’alot Elohim. See, for example, pp. 71,
86–87, 93, 110.
13 Nahmanides, Commentary on Genesis 1:2: .‫ ואיננו דבר‬,‫התוהו אחר האפס‬
138 CHAPTER 7

it was nothing and it became something.”14 Significantly, Abravanel seems to

have inserted the term mi-lo, which shows up neither in the standard versions
of Sefer Yetzirah nor in Nahmanides’ commentary to Genesis. Also significantly,
Abravanel’s citation utilizes the term “made” (‘asah).15 For Abravanel, as based
on Abraham bar Hiyya, “made” designates “the actualization of potential,”
rather than “creation” (beriah), which designates “the giving of the potential
of reality.”16 Here then, tohu stands at the heart of a double process of creation
ex nihilo. At first it is created lo-mi-davar and given the potential of reality, and
then it is made mi-lo into reality through bohu, thereby actualizing that poten-
tial. It is enigmatically not from a thing, but it is liminally a substantial nothing.
Abravanel follows up his line of thought on tohu as hylic nothing by reinfor­
cing it with a proof-text from the Bahir that is also employed by Nahmanides.
This is the very same passage utilized by both Alemanno and Pico:

Rabbi Berakhya said: And the earth was tohu and bohu [Genesis 1:2]. What
is the meaning of “was”? This means that it had already been. And
what is tohu? This is something that astounds people. And what is
bohu? This is something that was formerly tohu and returned to bohu; it
is something that has real substance, as it is written: bo hu, i.e., “there is
­something in it.”17

The initial impetus for quoting this text at length seems to be to simply further
parrot Nahmanides and to set up the hylic idea of tohu and the formal idea
of bohu. In this regard, Abravanel explicitly states that Nahmanides already
utilized this text in support of his hylomorphic claims. However, the parroting

14 Sefer Yetzirah 2:6, quoted in Abravanel, Commentary on Genesis, 37: ‫עשה מ'תהו' ממש‬
.‫ישנו‬-‫ אינו‬:‫ ויעשה מלא‬It is important to note this idea of mi-lo is not a common formula
in Abravanel’s writings. Nevertheless, in this specific context, its use in relation to tohu
(which in other places does come to mean ‘matter’; see Mif’alot Elohim, 65), the use of the
term ‘asah, and the Bahir passage that follows as proof-text, are all highly supportive of
my reading here.
15 In the standard versions of Sefer Yetzirah and in Nahmanides’ commentary on Genesis,
the term ‫יצר‬, “formed” is used instead of ‫עשה‬, “made.” This is not so significant here, since
for Abravanel, both terms equally designate “the actualization of potential.” See the fol-
lowing footnote, below.
16 Abravanel, Commentary on Genesis, 22: ‫הקדוש ברוך הוא קרא לנתינת המציאות הכוחני‬
.'‫ 'עשייה' ו'יצירה‬:‫ וליציאה לפועל קרא‬.'‫'בריאה‬
17 Bahir 1:2, quoted in Abravanel, 37: ,‫' מאי משמע היתה‬.‫אמר רבי ברכיה 'והארץ היתה תהו ובהו‬
‫ דבר שיש בו‬,‫ שהיתה תהו וחזרה בהו‬,‫ ומאי בהו‬.‫ דבר המתהה בני אדם‬,‫ ומאי תהו‬.‫שכבר היתה‬
.‫ דכתיב בו הוא‬,‫ממש‬
Ex-Nihilo Creation 139

stops there, and in an interesting turn that both displays a deeper familiarity
with the Bahir than simply that which is quelled from Nahmanides, and also
shows a stronger turn toward Plotinian influenced Platonism, Abravanel criti-
cizes Nahmanides for not taking his hylomorphism one step further.
“I am surprised,” writes Abravanel concerning Nahmanides’ quotation of
the Bahir, “that he did not also bring forth another passage that is mentioned
there, which clarifies more than this issue.”18 The “issue” to which Abravanel
refers is the hylomorphic nature of combined tohu and bohu as the impetus
of creation, and the “more” to be articulated relates to the origin, within the
dual elements of creation, of both peace and of evil. The quote from the Bahir
brought by Abravanel is as follows:

Why is it written: God made the one as opposed to the other [Ecclesiastes
7:14]? [This is to teach that] He made tohu and put its place within evil;
He made bohu and put its place within peace, as it is written: He makes
peace and He creates evil [Isaiah 45:7]. How? Evil is from tohu and peace
is from bohu.19

Abravanel ties this back to the hylomorphic idea of Nahmanides by stating

that tohu here is a reference to matter, from which stem all lack and evil, while
bohu is a reference to form, from which stem all peace and completeness.
The idea of evil as linked to matter rears its head in Pythagorean and Platonic
sources, but perhaps takes on its fullest expression in the thought of Plotinus.
Within his Enneads, Plotinus writes that “whatsoever possesses nothing and
so is in destitution—and especially what is essentially destitution—must be
evil in its own Kind . . . . For in Matter we have no mere absence of means or of
strength; it is utter destitution—of sense, of virtue, of beauty, of pattern,
of Ideal principle, of quality. This is surely ugliness, utter disgracefulness, unre-
deemed evil.”20 Abravanel’s tohu, as based on the Bahir and on Nahmanides,
seems to perfectly fit this Plotinian picture of evil matter. This distinguishes
Abravanel’s thought on tohu not only from that of Nahmanides, whom he

18 Abravanel, Commentary on Genesis, 37: ,‫תמה אני איך לא הביא גם כן מאמר אחר שנזכר שם‬
.‫שהוא מבאר יותר מזה הענין‬
19 Ibid.: ‫ עשה בהו‬.‫' עשה תהו ושם מקומו ברע‬.‫ 'גם את זה לעומת זה עשה האלהים‬:‫מאי דכתיב‬
.‫ רע מתהו ושלום מבהו‬,‫' כיצד‬.‫ 'עושה שלום ובורא רע‬:‫ ושם מקומו בשלום דכתיב‬In the Abrams
edition of the Bahir, this is on p. 121, #9. There, the passage is a bit longer, including discus-
sion of the heavens and of the angels Michael and Gabriel.
20 Plotinus, The Six Enneads, translated by Stephen MacKenna and B.S. Page (Chicago,
London and Toronto: Encyclopedia Britannica, Inc., 1952), II.4.16, p. 57.
140 CHAPTER 7

explicitly takes to task for not following out the line of thought of the Bahir,
but also from the thought of Alemanno. As we should recall, for Alemanno as
based on ibn Gabirolian principles of hylomorphism, tohu is a positive ground-
ing element for existence, which unifies through desire and which, when uti-
lized in reverse as a symbol, can lead those who are contemplative to a closer
understanding of God.
Abravanel’s idea seems to be much closer to that of Pico, for whom tohu
acts as the incomplete liminal feminine that is completed through the mas-
culine. This follows upon that which Sarah Pessin terms “the feminine-as-loss
symbolic order,” by which she explains: “the feminine is correlated with evil,
Womb-Creation emerges as a devalued False-Creation, and maternal/material
creative sustenance is completely subordinated to paternal/seminal universal-
izing form and function.”21 Abravanel’s feminized notion of lack that can only
be filled by the masculine becomes especially clear when we take into account
the fact that for Abravanel, as based upon the Bahir and ultimately upon the
prophet Isaiah, the antinomy of evil is not good, but peace.
As Elliot Wolfson has shown, the Hebrew term for peace, shalom, is some-
times used in the Bahir and also in rabbinic sources to euphemistically desig-
nate the male organ.22 Given the context of Abravanel’s citation of the above
passage from the Bahir, we can safely assume that he was cognizant of such
usage. Indeed, the meaning of shalom extends beyond “peace” and is under-
stood as denoting a sense of the completion of a lack, in the manner in which
the phallus is perceived to fill the void that is the vagina. Abravanel’s awareness
of these intricacies is attested to by his own usage of the word shlemut, mean-
ing “completeness” or “perfection,” to expound upon this Bahiric ­passage.23
Thus, Abravanel’s shalom in bohu as the antinomy of tohu parallels Pico’s sense
of tohu as the liminal feminine who brings about fullness not in itself, but
through Christ. Nevertheless, the concept of evil does not explicitly enter into
Pico’s picture of tohu, and for Pico, while the liminal is incomplete, it is also
positively fertile.

21 Sarah Pessin, “Loss, Presence, and Gabirol’s Desire,” 29.

22 Elliot Wolfson, Through a Speculum That Shines: Vision and Imagination in Medieval
Jewish Mysticism (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1994), 338; idem, “The Tree That
is All: Jewish-Christian Roots of a Kabbalistic Symbol in Sefer ha-Bahir,” Journal of Jewish
Thought and Philosophy, vol. 3 (1993): 50 fn. 68.
23 Abravanel, Commentary on Genesis, 37: ‫תהו נאמר על החומר שממנו יימשכו החסרונות‬
.‫ ובהו על הצורה שממנו השלום והשלמות כולו‬,‫והרעות כולם‬
Ex-Nihilo Creation 141

In line with classical Plotinian thought, Abravanel’s evil from tohu as matter,
which is the antinomy of completeness from bohu as form, takes on the config-
uration of concrete separation as inherent in the material process of creation.
This is an idea that acts as fodder for Abravanel in an argument against the late
thirteenth and early fourteenth century Provencal philosopher and exegete
Gersonides, concerning the same passage from tractate Hagigah employed
explicitly by Alemanno, and more tacitly by Pico. The passage, as re-quoted by
Gersonides, states: “Tohu is a green line that encompasses the world . . . Bohu—
these are the slippery stones.”24 According to Gersonides, this passage shows
that tohu represents form while bohu represents matter.25 Just as in relation to
a building, an encompassing line that is unseen on its own would be the formal
element, while stones placed by that line that thus give it expression would be
the material element, so too in relation to the world, tohu as the hidden ele-
ment is form and bohu as the manifest element is matter.
Gersonides’ reading, which reverses the hylomorphic order of tohu and
bohu, indeed seems logical. Nevertheless, Abravanel points out a flaw in
Gersonides’ logic, as based on the Plotinian idea of the sordid nature of mat-
ter. This flaw, according to Abravanel, is the fact that Gersonides omits the
very last part of the quote from Hagigah concerning tohu. The entire sen-
tence reads: “Tohu is a green line that encompasses the world, out of which
darkness proceeds.” The last clause is highly significant for Abravanel, since,
in his Plotinian line of thought, it can only be out of matter that darkness,
otherwise known as lack or evil, proceeds.26 Thus, if it is explicitly stated by
the Hagigah passage that it is out of tohu that “darkness proceeds,” then the
rabbinic statement must necessarily be suggesting that tohu refers to matter,
while bohu refers to form.
Darkness in this case also relates to the tehom, i.e., the “abyss” spoken of
in Genesis 1:2, which after stating that the earth was tohu and bohu, contin-
ues: And darkness was on the face of the tehom, i.e., the “abyss.” Abravanel

24 B T Hagigah 12a, cited in Abravanel, Commentary on Genesis, 37.

25 See Gersonides’ commentary on Genesis (Venice, 1547), 9c: ‫תהו זה קו ירוק שמקיף העולם‬
‫ והנה ידוע שנטיית הקו בבניין הוא‬. . . ‫והוא רמז לצורה בהו אלו אבנים מפולמות והוא רמז לחמר‬
.‫הצורה האחרונה לבניין ההוא והאבנים אשר הם שתותיו ויסודותיו הם החמר הראשון לו‬
26 On Plotinus’ idea of darkness in relation to matter, see his Enneads, II.4.5, p. 51: “The ulti-
mate of every partial-thing is its Matter, which, therefore, must be all darkness since light
is a Reason-Principle. The Mind, too, as also a Reason-Principle, sees only in each particu-
lar object the Reason-Principle lodging there; anything lying below that it declares to lie
below the light, to be therefore a thing of darkness, just as the eye, a thing of light, seeks
light and colours which are modes of light, and dismisses all that is below the colours and
hidden by them, as belonging to the order of the darkness, which is the order of Matter.”
142 CHAPTER 7

f­ urther relates the tehom recounted here to tohu and to darkness, explaining
that the word “tohu is derived from tehom, for the whole world was entirely
water, and there were not yet any existents in it; there was also not yet light
emanated upon the face of the tehom, for the luminaries had not yet been
created.”27 The state of darkness of the tohu/tehom due to the lack of light
being emanated, and its nature as water, are highly important for under-
standing Abravanel’s hylomorphic metaphysics.28 Understood in Plotinian
terms, the darkness which is matter was not yet infused with the light pro-
vided by the luminaries, which are forms that give shape to matter and thus
bring forth existents. In the words of Plotinus, “It is from the Divine that
all light comes, and, until this is absorbed, no light in any recipient of light
can be authentic.”29 For Plotinus, prior to the infusion of authentic divine
light, there is darkness in prime matter. This certainly has resonance with
Abravanel’s dark tehom and his specific usage of the term “emanated” to
describe the subsequent infusion of light, and it also has resonance with his
description of a lack of existents prior to the emanation of light. In terms
of the watery nature of the tohu/tehom as characterized by Abravanel, this
has resonance with Alemanno’s reading, as explicated in chapter five above;
water in itself, like the tohu/tehom, is formless, and only takes on the form of
the formal vessels into which it is poured.30
But the dark, watery, abysmal character of tohu is only one side of the hylo-
morphic nature of creation. On the other side is the emanated light that comes
upon the face of the abyss and temporarily effaces its darkness. In this regard,
it is important to mention a passage from Abravanel’s Commentary on Exodus,
which discusses God’s Glory as His first emanation, which is Light:

27 Abravanel, Commentary on Genesis, 50: ‫ שהיה כל העולם כולו מים ולא‬,‫תהו נגזר מתהום‬
‫ כי עדיין לא נבראו‬,‫ וגם לא היה בה אור מתפשט על פני אותו תהום‬,‫היו בה עדיין הוויות כלל‬
.‫ המאורות‬See also Mif’alot Elohim, 66. The idea is also brought forth by Abravanel on p. 36
of his Genesis commentary, most probably in reference to Sa’adia Gaon: ‫ומזה הדעת היה‬
'‫ 'חינם‬,)‫ מב‬,‫ 'ריקם' (בראשית לא‬:‫ כמו שאמר‬,‫ ושהמ"ם בו נוספת‬,‫מי שפירש תהו מלשון תהום‬
‫ שהוא‬,‫ ושהיה ענין הכתוב שבתחילת הבריאה היתה הארץ כולה מכוסה מים‬.)‫ טו‬,‫(בראשית כט‬
.‫התהום‬
28 For more on Gersonides’ equation of bohu, tehom and mayyim, to which Abravanel
is tacitly responding here, see Seymour Feldman, “In the Beginning God Created: A
Philosophical Midrash,” in God and Creation: An Ecumenical Symposium, ed. David B.
Burrell and Bernard McGinn, (Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press, 1990), 8–10.
29 Plotinus, Enneads II.4.5, p. 51.
30 For more allusions to tehom, tohu, and water in Abravanel, see Mif’alot, 66; Commentary
on Genesis, 10, 39, 49.
Ex-Nihilo Creation 143

Not only did the prophets of truth call His Glory, may He be blessed,
by the name “Light,” but the wise men of the nations also arose and
received the fact that He is complete Light. And Plato wrote the follow-
ing in the book Supernal Essences: ‘The First Cause has a supernality
that is above description, and tongues indeed grow weary from trying to
describe it, on account of its unity. For it is above all unity. And indeed, all
of the causes whose light is from the First Cause can be described, for the
First Cause illuminates the effect. But it is not illuminated from another
light, since it is the absolute and complete Light that does not have any
light above it. And on account of this, its Light lacks all description, since
there is no cause above it.31

The “prophets of truth” mentioned here refer to Psalm 36:10, Proverbs 16:15,
Isaiah 60:1, and Ezekiel 43:2, which all mention a supernal light. Plato and his
book Supernal Essences (Sefer ha-Atzamim ha-Elyonim) is actually a reference
to the anonymous Proclean book Liber de Causis. The passage quoted here by
Abravanel is identical to a passage that we discussed above in chapter one,
which, we should recall, was drawn from Abraham Abulafia’s Imrei Shefer and
was quoted at length by Alemanno. Given the fact that Abravanel’s Commentary
on Exodus was written around 1506, and given the fact that this is the only place
in Abravanel’s oeuvre where he seems to be citing from a text that is clearly
from Abulafia, Moshe Idel surmises that Abravanel was directly copying from
Alemanno here.32 This seems to be supported by the fact that Abravanel does not
go on to discuss kataphatic prophecy, as in the case of Abulafia, but he remains in
the apophatic realm, as in the case of Alemanno. Thus, even though the text itself
is unmistakably Liber de Causis as most pro­bably drawn from Abulafia’s Imrei
Shefer, it may very well be that Abravanel drew it from Alemanno and continued
the discussion of apophatism that Alemanno carried out in his works.
Whatever the case may be, what is important for our discussion is Abravanel’s
usage of the notion that the Light is emanated from the First Cause, which

31 Isaac Abravanel, Commentary on Exodus 40 (Warsaw, 1862), 19c: ‫ולא לבד נביאי האמת כנו‬
‫כבודו יתברך בשם אור כי גם חכמי האומות קיימו וקבלו שהוא אור מוחלט וכתב אפלטו"ן‬
‫בספר העצמים העליונים וז"ל העלה הראשונה יש לה יותר עליונות מן הספור ואולם נלאו‬
‫ ואמנם יסופרו כל העלות‬.‫הלשונות מלספרה בעבור אחדותה לפי שהיא למעלה על כל אחדות‬
‫אשר אורן מאור העלה הראשונה שהעלה הראשונה תאיר עלולה והיא לא תאור מאור אחר‬
‫ ובעבור זה היה אורה נעדר הספור‬.‫לפי שהוא האור הגמור והמוחלט אשר אין למעלה ממנה אור‬
.‫ לפי שאין למעלה ממנה עלה עד כאן‬I thank Moshe Idel for bringing this passage to my
attention.
32 This information was relayed to me in conversation, and I thank Moshe for bringing this
information to my attention. Part of the surmise is that only Abulafia (and then Alemanno
and Abravanel afterwards) refers to this passage as being from Sefer ha-Atzamim.
144 CHAPTER 7

is a Light that then in its essence illuminates other causes, which illuminate
effects. This would be in line with Abravanel’s notion of bohu, character-
ized as an emanated Light that illuminates the tohu. An alternate, hydraulic
characterization would be of bohu as the vessels that give form to the water.
In the language of Abravanel following through with the idiom of Hagigah,
the flip side of tohu in bohu is characterized as grand and precious moist
stones that give shape to existence. Following through with a Platonic read-
ing, Abravanel notes that their plurality as “stones” is due to the plurality of
ideal forms in the divine mind, which when actualized through the monolith
of hyle, give birth to a plurality of existents. In extension, their moist character
stems from the fact that they are embedded within the watery tehom/tohu, or
hylic matter. “Form is carried by matter and is within it in potentia,” clarifies
Abravanel, “and it is not matter that is within form.”33 Confusion in the matter
can be detrimental, as shown by the famous Talmudic and Hekhalot story of
the four who entered Pardes. The famous passage reads:

Four men entered Pardes, namely, Ben Azzai, and Ben Zoma, Aher, and
Rabbi Akiva. Rabbi Akiva said to them: When you arrive at the stones
of pure marble, do not say “water, water!” For it is said: He that speaketh
falsehood shall not be established before mine eyes [Psalm 101:7].34

Based upon the idea of hyle as water and the moist stones from the previ-
ous Hagigah passage as ideal forms, Abravanel gives this enigmatic passage a
unique Platonic reading. The stones of pure marble that come into the vision
of the four adepts who enter into the mystical garden of Pardes are the pure
ideal forms. In effect, the adepts are looking into the mind of God at bohu, the
blueprint of creation. By mistaking these stones of bohu, which are represen-
tative of ideal forms, with the water of tohu, which is representative of hylic
matter, one “speaketh falsehood,” and does not deserve to stand before the
almighty God. The divine element of the beginning of the existent universe is
not to be mistaken with the created material element that embeds the divine.
Although Abravanel does not explicitly state so within his Genesis commen-
tary, the plural divine stones of bohu that are actually unified within the divine
mind can very possibly be understood to represent the kabbalistic sefirot. This
is supported by a now famous passage that Abravanel wrote around the same

33 Abravanel, Commentary on Genesis 38: ‫ לא החומר‬,‫הצורה נשואה בחומר והיא בו בכוח‬

.‫בצורה‬
34 BT Hagigah 14b.
Ex-Nihilo Creation 145

time that he was composing his commentary on Genesis, in which he explains

the sefirot to the Cretan philosopher Saul ha-Kohen Ashkenazi:

These are divine depictions, through which the world was created.
Thus, they [i.e., the kabbalists] said that the sefirot are not created, but
are emanated, and that all of them are unified within Him, may He be
blessed. For they are the depiction of his righteousness and his will in
regard to that which he created. This was truly the idea of the separate,
all-­encompassing forms that Plato set down.35

In this formula, the sefirot are synonymous with the divine Platonic forms
that in the Genesis commentary are the stones of bohu. Like bohu as distinct
from tohu as characterized by Abravanel in the Genesis commentary, the
sefirot as explained here are not created but are emanated; but through them,
as through bohu, the world was created. The sefirot here are also, like the stones
of bohu in the Genesis commentary, a plurality in relation to matter; and like
bohu when it actualizes tohu, they give form to a plurality of existents. But
within God Himself, they are unified and simple.
Considering the parallels of these two Platonically framed segments from
Abravanel’s writings, and considering the temporal proximity of their compo-
sition, it is not unreasonable to assume a correspondence between the stones
of bohu and the sefirot. At the very least, Abravanel’s own thought would allow
for such a Platonically sefirotic reading of bohu, which would match up well
with his Platonically mystical reading of the four who entered Pardes. This,
along with his earlier reliance upon both the Bahir and Nahmanides, brings
him into closer propinquity to both Alemanno and Pico. Yet unlike for his two
contemporaries, for Abravanel, tohu remains created and lowly. In this way, he
maintains a strong sense of creation ex nihilo, while at the same time promot-
ing a radically Platonized picture of creation as ideal forms from the mind of
God, which are activated through their saturation in matter.
Related to the ex nihilo creation of tohu and its actualization through bohu is
the question of the status of the creation of the heavens, which in the ­biblical

35 Isaac Abravanel, Questions of the wise and honorable Saul Ha-Kohen, 12d: ‫מציאות הדבר‬
‫ והצלם הזה בלי ספק הוא עולם‬,‫בציור הפועל קודם בהכרח למציאות הפעולה ההיא בפועל‬
‫הספירות שזכרו חכמי האמת שהם ציורים אלהיים שבהם נברא העולם ולכן אמרו שהספירות‬
‫אינם נבראות אלא נאצלות ושכלם מתאחדות בו יתברך כי הם ציור חסידותו ורצונו במה שברא‬
.‫ וזה היה באמת דעת הצורות הנבדלות הכוללות שהניח אפלטון‬For a fuller discussion of this
passage in relation to the philosophical idea of divine depictions, see: Ogren, “Sefirotic
Depiction,” 592–593.
146 CHAPTER 7

narrative precedes mention of the beginning of the earth as tohu and bohu.
In this regard, Abravanel, like both Alemanno and Pico, picks up on the rab-
binic notion of the heavens as composed of fire and water. For this purpose, he
quotes Bereshit Rabbah 4:7, which is very similar to the passage in BT Hagigah
12a that seems to stand at the heart of Alemanno’s, and possibly also Pico’s
discourse. Bereshit Rabbah, as quoted by Abravanel, states: “Shamayim, i.e.,
‘heavens’—Rav said: esh (fire) and mayim (water). Rabbi Abba bar Kahana said
in the name of Rav: The Holy One, blessed is He, took fire and water and mixed
them together, and from them the heavens were made.”36 Abravanel goes on to
ask: “Would a wise and discerning man think that these completions [i.e., the
explanations of Rav] say that the incorruptible heavens are composed of
the elements of fire and water, which as opposites are very quick to change?”37
For Abravanel, the very notion that the heavens are composed of fire and water
is problematic, and not only because the four elements of earth, air, fire and
water are of the sublunar realm.38 It is also problematic because in his thought,
the heavens are not given over to generation and corruption, which is a very
quality of elementally composed bodies that, through their very natures, even-
tually decompose.
In order to salvage the rabbinic tradition, Abravanel offers a radical rein-
terpretation. Like Alemanno’s and Pico’s hypostatic readings, and similar
to Pico’s later philosophically symbolic reading, Abravanel too recasts the
meanings of fire and water. Yet his reading is along more Aristotelian lines,
rather than those that are theosophically or philosophically antinomous.
According to Abravanel, it is not that Rav really meant that the heavens were
composed of fire and water, nor is he necessarily trying to symbolize a sense
of coincidentia oppositorum as claimed by both Alemanno and Pico. “Rather,”
Abravanel writes, “it was the opinion of Rav that the word shamayim is
said about the upper spheres and about the separate intellects, together.”39

36 Abravanel, Commentary on Genesis, 32: ‫ רבי אבא בר כהנא אמר‬.‫ אש ומים‬:‫שמים – רב אמר‬
.‫ נטל הקדוש ברוך הוא אש ומים ופתכן זה בזה ומהם נעשו שמים‬:‫בשם רב‬
37 Ibid., 32–33: ‫ שיאמרו שהיו השמים הבלתי‬,‫האם יחשוב איש חכם ונבון על השלמים האלה‬
.‫ בהיותם הפכיים ממהרים השינוי מאד‬,‫ הם מורכבים מאש ומים היסודיים‬,‫נפסדים‬
38 For a more extensive explanation of Abravanel’s take on the composition of the cosmos as
based on a mechanistic notion of the workings of the elements, see Netanyahu, Don Isaac
Abravanel: Statesman and Philosopher, 108–109.
39 Abravanel, Commentary on Genesis, 33: ‫ ששם שמים נאמר על‬,‫אלא שהיה דעתו של רב‬
.‫ הכדורים העליונים ועל השכלים הנבדלים יחד‬The statement here actually comes as part of
a larger project, in which Abravanel tries to reconcile the thought of Maimonides that the
“heavens” are said about the first sphere, with the thought of Nahmanides that the word
designates the separate intellects.
Ex-Nihilo Creation 147

The separate intellects, which as we have seen in chapter three above, are
synonymous for Abravanel with the angels, are metaphorically designated
by fire, while the spheres, which are actually ethereal in substance, are des-
ignated by water. As we should recall, this is highly reminiscent of an under-
standing of the notion as an angelic hierarchy, as not explicitly stated in
relation to shamayim but as quite possibly implied by Pico in his Oration. In
the case of Pico, the hierarchy involves Seraphim, Cherubim and Thrones;
in the case of Abravanel, the hierarchy involves an angelic framing of the
separate intellects and the spheres, as two sides of a hylomorphic coin.
Abravanel goes on to explain:

Indeed, Rabbi Abba bar Kahana gave the reason why the heavenly mov-
ers and the separate intellects were together called by the one name
shamayim, saying that this is because of their relationship, that the sepa-
rate intellect is the form of the sphere and its mover. And behold, they
said, “He mixed them together,” which means that they were combined
and made into the shamayim, i.e., the heavens. That is to say, the matter
of the heavens is the sphere and its form is the separate intellect, and
thus the two of them were joined together with the one name shamayim,
i.e., the heavens.40

Here Abravanel returns to the sense of hylomorphism that characterizes

the beginning of creation. The heavens were composed, in the truest sense
of being “composite,” thereby marking them as part of the world of creation,
which is marked by dualism in contradistinction to the unitary realm of the
Creator. In this they are distinguished from their Creator and follow the same
compositional pattern as sublunar creatures; yet since they are not elemental,
they are not given over to corruption.
The incorruptible nature of the heavens does not mean that they are eter-
nal, which would place them on par with the divine. In his Mif’alot Elohim,
Abravanel explains:

It is said that the heavens do not undergo corruption according to the nat-
ural standard, which is from one opposite to the other opposite, and from
the composite to the elements out of which it is composed. Rather, just as

40 Abravanel, Commentary on Genesis, 33: ‫ למה הגרמים‬,‫אמנם רבי אבא בר כהנא נתן הסיבה‬
‫ שהיה הנבדל‬,‫ ואמר שהוא מפני התיחסותם‬.'‫השמימיים והנבדלים נקראו יחד בשם אחד 'שמים‬
‫ שחומר‬,‫ כלומר‬.‫ שפירושו ערבם ונעשו שמים‬,'‫ והנה אמרו 'פתכן זה בזה‬.‫צורת הגלגל ומניעו‬
.‫ ולכן התייחדו שניהם בשם אחד שמים‬,‫ וצורתו הוא הנבדל‬,‫השמים הוא הגלגל‬
148 CHAPTER 7

we believe that the heavens came into being neither from o­ pposites nor
from the elements, but from no-thing (lo-mi-davar) and after complete
privation, so too will they perish, not into the opposite and not into the
elements, but into complete privation.41

A few sentences later, Abravanel invokes the rabbinic dictum concerning the
heavens as composed of fire and water; there too, he asserts that it does not
refer to opposite elements, but to compositional form and matter. Here he is
returning to an ex nihilo idea of creation quite literally from no-thing, i.e., lo-
mi-davar, by which he tacitly seems to be linking the idea of the creation of
the heavens back to his concept of the creation of the earth out of tohu and
bohu. As we should recall in the case of tohu and bohu, he states “that the world
came into being lo-mi-davar, i.e., from no-thing and after complete privation,”
and that “we should not suppose that there was hylic matter prior to the first
creation,”42 but that all was formed mi-lo, i.e., “from nothing,” which is the hylic
ground of everything. In the case of tohu and bohu, as here in the case of the
heavens, there seems to be a coincidence of opposites necessary for creation.
Indeed, both the heavens and the earth are the created subjects of syzygis-
tic pairs. Both of these pairs are from no-thing, i.e., lo-mi-davar, and both are
incorruptible “according to the natural standard” of elemental decomposition.
But regardless of their incorruptibility, they do both have a common annihila-
tive ending based on the will of God, just as they both have a common ex nihilo
beginning.
For Abravanel, as for both Alemanno and for Pico, the annihilative ending
and the ex nihilo beginning, of both the heavens in esh and mayim and the
earth in tohu and bohu, meet in the enigmatic process of cosmic cycles.43 In his
commentary on the biblical chapter of Leviticus that discusses shmittot and
yovelot, Abravanel explains:

41 Mif’alot, 159: .‫נאמר שאין השמים נפסדים כפי המנהג הטבעי שהוא מן ההפך אל ההפך‬
‫ אבל כמו שנאמין שנתהוו השמים לא מהפכים ולא‬.‫ומהמורכב אל היסודות אשר מהם הורכב‬
‫מן היסודות כי אם לא מדבר ואחר ההעדר הגמור כן יפסדו לא אל ההפך ולא אל היסודות אבל‬
.‫אל ההעדר הגמור‬
42 Abravanel, Commentary on Genesis, 3: .‫ אבל אחרי ההעדר הגמור‬,‫נתהווה העולם לא מדבר‬
.‫ואין לנו אם כן להניח היולי קודם בבריאה הראשונה‬
43 For a detailed account of Abravanel’s understanding of cosmic cycles, see Brian Ogren,
“La questione dei cicli cosmici nella produzione pugliese di Yišhaq Abrabanel,” Itinerari
di Ricerca Storica xx–xxi (2007): 141–161.
Ex-Nihilo Creation 149

The sages say that “in the future, the heavens and the earth will be
renewed.”44 And that which is written about them: And the heavens will
be rolled together like a scroll [Isaiah 34:4] is like a man who reads from
a scroll and rolls it and returns and opens and reads and rolls. In such a
manner, in the future, the Holy one, blessed is He, will roll them (i.e., the
heavens), and will return and will renew them to their place, as it is writ-
ten, they will be rolled together like a scroll [ibid.]. And the earth will wither
like clothing [Isaiah 51:6] is like a man who takes off his tallit and folds it
and returns and opens it and puts it on and folds it.45 In such a manner,
in the future, the Holy one, blessed is He, will fold the earth like clothing,
as it is said, And the earth will wither like clothing [ibid.]; and it is said, Like
a garment You will change them, and they will be replaced [Psalm 102:27].46

In an interesting framing of events related to revelation, this passage ties the

discussion of the continual beginning and ending of both the heavens and
the earth back to Abravanel’s ideas of both language and of garments in rela-
tion to the Bereshit, as discussed above in chapter three. The heavens are like a
scroll, which we can assume is an allusion to Torah; the earth is like a tallit. The
imagery of existence evoked, then, is of a public reading of Torah, where ritual
and text come together in order to reveal. As we should recall, it is only through
the recitation of the words that the hidden thoughts become manifest, and it
is only through the donning of the garment that the body can parodoxically
reveal that which is concealed. The process is continual and recurring, with the
end of each short cycle giving itself over to divestment and revestment, and
with the end of each longer cycle giving itself over to a renewal of the entire
process.47 This is similar in nature to Alemanno’s distinction, discussed above

44 Tractate Kallah 8.
45 Compare to BT Rosh ha-Shanah 17b.
46 Abravanel, Commentary on Leviticus, 25:1: ‫חכמים אומרים שמים וארץ עתידים להתחדש ומה‬
‫ כך‬.‫כתוב עליהם ונגולו כספר שמים כאדם שקורא בספר וגולל אותו וחוזר ופותח וקורא וגולל‬
‫עתיד הקדוש ברוך הוא לגלול אותם וחוזר ומחדש אותם למקומם הה"ד ונגולו כספר השמים‬
‫והארץ כבגד תבלה כאדם שהוא פושט טליתו והוא מקפל אותו וחוזר ופותח ולובש ומקפל אותו‬
‫כך עתיד הקדוש ברוך הוא לקפל את הארץ כבגד שנאמר והארץ כבגד תבלה ונאמר כלבוש‬
.‫תחליפם ויחלופו‬
47 In a later, Safedian context, Shaul Magid has noted that “reading was understood as a
reversal of divine creativity: moving from the text that describes (and serves as the foun-
dation of) creation back to the origins of existence (zimzum), which serves as the condi-
tion for creation. Mystical reading of this sort is simultaneously an emulation and reversal
of divine zimzum, serving to bring the written text to its primordial beginnings, beyond
speech, beyond writing, to the nexus between the infinite One and the moment of its
150 CHAPTER 7

in chapter five, between shmittot as the shorter cycles with interludes that have
a nature that is up for debate, and yovelot as the longer cycles with interludes
that are beyond all understanding.
Regarding an understanding of the beginning and of the ending, Abravanel
elsewhere writes:

God, may He be blessed, placed the world in the heart of men, i.e., the
general comprehension of its reality, without being able to comprehend
the beginning of things, which is their essence or their operator, and also
without being able to comprehend the purpose and the end for which
they were created. This is the meaning of the saying: (He set the world
in their heart), but without man being able to find out what God did from
the beginning and until the end [Ecclesiastes 3:11], i.e., from their formal
and operational beginning until their final cause, which will come in
the end.48

This is said in regard to the celestial realm, but it is also said in regard to
“first matter,” or tohu, which Abravanel goes on to state is “explained as being
ungraspable according to its essence.”49 While a general comprehension of
existence is possible, a comprehension of the beginning and the end, or the
essence and the purpose, is not. This has to do with the ex nihilo and ad nihilo
nature of existence. The true beginning and ending of existence is not grasp-
able because both extremities of existence fade into a truly privational noth-
ing, which by its very nature is nothing that can be grasped.

fragmentation (exile). This is generally how these Kabbalists define the redemptive pro-
cess” (“Origin and Overcoming the Beginning, 172). The parallel to Abravanel’s thinking is
striking, and is important to note in terms of locating his often elusive thought within a
more mystical schema.
48 Abravanel, Commentary on the Early Prophets, 1 Kings 3, 468: ‫האל ית' נתן את העולם בלב‬
‫ מבלי שישיג ראשית הדברים שהוא עצמותם או פועלם‬,‫ ר"ל השגת מציאותו בכלל‬,‫בני אדם‬
‫ וזהו אמרו מבלי אשר ימצא האדם‬,‫ומבלי שישיג גם כן תכליתם וסופם אשר בעבורם נבראו‬
‫ ר"ל מהתחלתם הצוריית והפועלת עד סבתם‬,‫את המעשה אשר עשה האלקים מראש ועד סוף‬
.‫התכליתית אשר תבא בסוף‬
49 Ibid.: .‫החמר הראשון הוא מבואר מענינו היותו בלתי מושג כפי מה שהוא‬
 Chapter 8

Chaos and Divine Spirit—Leone Ebreo on Greek

Mythology, Jewish Lore, and the Gendered Creation
of the Universe

In contrast to the other thinkers being discussed here, Leone Ebreo pays little
attention to the terms tohu and bohu as important markers of a dual nature
of the beginning of creation. In fact, the terms only seem to receive one men-
tion within the Dialoghi, which is perhaps peculiarly neither related to their
Hebrew framing, nor to the hylomorphic interpretive tradition of those like
Nahmanides and the Bahir.1 Rather, Leone’s mention of them seems to be
by way of the Vulgate. In fact, he uses the Italian phrase “inane e vacua” as
their markers, which is the precise “inanis et vacua,” or “void and empty” of
the Vulgate, which Pico had earlier accused of synonymously and monolithi-
cally describing hylic matter rather than the two separate entities of matter
and form. And indeed for Leone, these terms are synonymous descriptions
of the earth itself at the beginning of creation, which for him is synonymous
with what he calls Chaos, or prime matter. “The word for in the beginning in
Hebrew can mean ‘before,’ ” explains Leone’s interlocutor Filone. “Thus,” Filone

1  This is indeed peculiar for a Jewish thinker, and especially the son of Isaac Abravanel, who
would have been familiar with the various Hebrew traditions on tohu and bohu. However,
Leone’s source here indeed seems to be the Vulgate, or an Italian translation of it such as
that of Nicolò Malermi, rather than the Hebrew Bible itself. This all perhaps lends further
credence to the argument that the Dialoghi were not originally written in Hebrew, but rather
in a Latin language, such as Latin, Spanish, or the Italian of the editio princeps. For had
Leone been writing in Hebrew, or had he even been thinking in Hebrew at this point, his
rendering of tohu and bohu would most probably have been very different. For more on the
controversy of the original language of the Dialoghi, see: Ruderman, “Italian Renaissance
and Jewish Thought,” 410–412; Barbara Garvin, “The Language of Leone Ebreo’s Dialoghi
D’amore,” Italia 13–15 (2001): 181–210; Arthur M. Lesley, “The Place of the Dialoghi d’amore
in Contemporaneous Jewish Thought,” in Essential Papers on Jewish Culture in Renaissance
and Baroque Italy, ed. David Ruderman (New York and London: New York University Press,
1992), 170–172; Menahem Dorman, “Introduction” [Hebrew], Sihot ‘Al ha-Ahava [Hebrew
translation of the Dialoghi], (Jerusalem: Mosad Bialik, 1983), 86–95. For an account of an
interesting case of an early reception of the Italian version of the text by a Hebrew reader,
see James Nelson Novoa, “Glosse ebraiche in un manoscritto contenente il terzo dei dialoghi
d’amore di Leone Ebreo,” La Rassegna Mensile di Israel, vol. lxxii, n. 3 (Settembre–Dicembre
2007): 29–46.

© koninklijke brill nv, leiden, ���6 | doi ��.��63/9789004330634_010

152 Chapter 8

says regarding the first two verses of Genesis, “I would say: ‘before God created
and separated from Chaos the heavens and the earth,’ that is, the celestial and
the terrestrial world, the earth, that is, Chaos, was inane e vacua, i.e., void and
empty.”2 Tohu and bohu as ‘inane e vacua’ here are merely identical adjectives
describing Chaos as represented by earth, which for Leone is the operative
component in that it is the mother of all creation.
The void and empty earth spoken of in Genesis 1:2, which for Leone is
mother Chaos, was given fullness and form, in his system, by the subsequently
mentioned “spirit of God” of the same biblical verse, or what Leone terms
the “divine spirit.” For him, this is intellect, which is the father of all creation.
Leone’s Filone elaborates this relation of divine spirit to earth in regard to tohu
and bohu; instead of translating as “void and empty,” he says of the earth:

It is more appropriate to say that it was confused and rough, i.e., hidden,
and it was like a dark, mysterious abyss of many waters, over which the
divine spirit blew, like a great wind over the deep sea. It [i.e., the divine
spirit] came to illuminate the dark, intimate and hidden waters, draw-
ing them out with successive inundations. Thus acted the divine spirit,
which is the highest intellect full of Ideas. When this communed with
the dark, mysterious Chaos, it created light within it, which extracted the
hidden substances illuminated by the ideal form.3

It is clear from this passage that despite Leone’s inattention to the hylomorphic
reading of tohu and bohu, his philosophy abounds with a dualistic syzygy that
may very well have been influenced by his predecessors. In this specific case,
the focal point of the first few verses of Genesis shifts from tohu and bohu to
the earth and the divine spirit, which represent Chaos, or hylic matter, and
Intellect, or divine form, respectively.4 Like Alemanno and Pico, Leone holds

2  Dialogues, 240; Dialoghi, 215: The translation here is mine: Questo vocabulo “in principio”
in ebraico può significare “innanzi”; direi, adunque: “innanzi che Dio crease e separasse dal
Caos il cielo e la terra”, cioè il mondo celeste e terrestre, la terra, cioè il Caos, era inane e
vacua.
3  Ibid.: E più propriamente dice che era confuse e rude, cioè occulta, ed era come un abisso di
molte acque, tenebroso, sopra il quale soffiando lo spirito divino, come fa un vento grande
sopra un pelago, viene ad illucidare le tenebrose intime e occulte acque cavandole fuora con
successive inundazione. Così fece il spirito divino, che è il sommo intelletto pieno de Idee. Il
quale, comunicato al tenebroso Caos, creò in lui la luce per estrazione de la sustanzie occulte
illuminate da la formalità ideale.
4  See, for example, Dialoghi, 156: Onde il savio profeta Moisè del principio de la creazion del
mondo disse che, essendo tutte le cose un caos tenebroso a modo d’uno abisso d’acqua oscuro,
il spirito di Dio adspirando ne l’acque del caos produsse la luce: vuol dire che del lucido
Chaos And Divine Spirit 153

that hylic matter is hidden and mysterious, and like his father Isaac, Leone
relates it to the dark, watery abyss. Also like his father, Leone sees the divine
light as emanated into the dark in inundations, and like all of his predeces-
sors, Leone understands ideal form as giving shape to the confused and rough
Chaos through multiform Ideas. This works in the reverse as well; as Filone
says in another context, “Things are known by their opposites,”5 and just as the
Ideas illuminate the mysterious abyss of Chaos, so too does Chaos concretize
the abstract Ideas by embedding them within itself. This, too, is a concept that
Leone has in common with all of his predecessors discussed here.
Unlike his predecessors, however, Leone draws out the relationship between
divine form and prime matter through a recounting of Greek mythology as
primarily filtered through Giovanni Boccaccio’s Genealogia deorum ­gentilium.6
According to this narration, the beginning of creation occurred through
the combined activities of the mother of All, Chaos, and the divine father,
Demogorgon. Like Boccaccio, Leone’s Filone explains that according to the
Greek poet Pronapides, the supreme creator God Demogorgon, whose name,
Filone claims, derives from the Greek ‘god of the earth’, or god of the universe,
was at rest in Eternity when he felt a tumult in the womb of Chaos. Filone then
relates the following events:

Demogorgon stretched forth his hand and opened the womb of Chaos,
from which Strife emerged, with a dreadful and dishonest face, causing
a tumult. Strife wished to fly towards the heavens, but Demogorgon cast
him down. While Chaos was still overcome by sweats and fiery groans,
Demogorgon did not remove his hand until he had drawn Pan and his
three sisters, called the Fates, from the womb of Chaos. Since Pan seemed
to Demogorgon to be the most beautiful thing generated, he made him
his steward and gave him the three sisters as a retinue, that is to say, as

i­ ntelletto divino fu produtta la luce visiva nel primo giorno de la creazione, e nel quarto dì fu
produtta la luce visiva nel primo giorno de la creazione, e nel quarto dì fu ­applicate al sole,
a la luna e a le stelle.
5  Dialogues, 82.
6  For more on Leone’s appropriation of Boccaccio, see: James Nelson Novoa, “Leone Ebreo’s
Appropriation of Boccaccio’s De genealogia deorum gentilium,” in Renaissance Medievalisms,
ed. Konrad Eisenbichler (Toronto: Centre for Reformation and Renaissance Studies, 2009),
75–92; Manuppella, 477. For more on his usage of Greek myth generally, see: Shoshanna
Gershenzon, “Myth and Scripture: The Dialoghi d’amore of Leone Ebreo,” in A Crown for a King:
Studies in Jewish Art, History and Archaeology in Memory of Stephen S. Kayser, ed. Shalom
Sabar, Steven Fine, William M. Kramer (Berkeley: Judah Magnes Museum, 2000), 125–145.
154 Chapter 8

servants and companions. Chaos, being delivered from this weight, by

order of Demogorgon set Pan on his seat.7

This narration is almost identical to the fourteenth century telling of Boccaccio

in the third chapter of his first book of the Genealogia deorum gentilium.8 Even
though Leone never mentions Boccaccio by name, we can safely assume that
this was his source.
Much of Filone’s interpretation of this fable is also identical to that of
Boccaccio. For example, both indicate that the stretching forth of the hand of
Demogorgon symbolizes the action of the divine will to shape and to distin-
guish; in the words of Boccaccio, the goal is “to produce from a formless cess-
pool a beautiful and ordered work,”9 while in the words of Filone, the goal is
“to reduce the universal potentiality of Chaos to a distinct act.”10 Leone’s Filone
importantly adds regarding the Greek poets: “They depicted this extraordinary
mode of generation by means of the hand, and not by the usual genital mem-
ber, in order to demonstrate that the first production or creation of things was
not ordinary like the natural generation that is customary and which follows
this original creation, but instead it was strange and miraculous, made by a
mighty hand.”11 This caveat does not appear in any form in Boccaccio’s text,
and the distinction between “natural generation” and “original creation” may
relate to Abraham bar Hiyya’s distinction, brought forth by Leone’s father
as discussed above in chapter seven, of “making” and “formation” (‘asiyah
and yetzirah) vs. “creation” (beriah). Leone’s “natural generation” may relate

7  Dialogues, 115; Dialoghi, 93–94: Demogorgone distese la mano e aperse il ventre del Caos,
del quale uscì il Litigio facendo tumult con brutta e inonesta faccia; e voleva volare in
alto, ma Demogorgone lo gittò al basso. E restando pure il Caos gravato da sudori e sospiri
focosi, Demogorgone non tirò a sé la sua mano fin che gli cavò ancora del ventre Pan con
tre sorelle chiamate Parche; e parendo Pan a Demogorgone più bello che nissun’altra cosa
generate, lo fece suo maestro di casa e gli donò le tre sue sorelle per pedisseque, cioè ser-
vitrici e compagne. Vedendosi il Caos liberato della sua gravezza, per comandamento di
Demogorgone mise Pan ne la sua sedia.
8   For Boccaccio’s almost identical version, see his Genealogy of the Pagan Gods, vol. I,
books I–V, edited and translated by Jon Solomon (Cambridge and London: The I Tatti
Renaissance Library of Harvard University Press, 2011), 46–49.
9  Ibid., 53.
10  Dialogues, 116.
11  Ibid., Dialoghi, 95: hanno finto questo straordinario modo di generazione con mano, e
non con membro ordinario generative, per demostrare che la prima produzione o creazi-
one de le cose non fu ordenaria come la natural generazione solita e successive doppo la
creazione, ma fu strana e miracolosa, con mano d’ogni potenzia.
Chaos And Divine Spirit 155

to bar Hiyya’s and Isaac’s “actualization of potential,” which is distinct from

Leone’s “original creation,” which may relate to bar Hiyya’s and Isaac’s “giving
of the potential of reality.” For Leone, the former is represented by the phallus
while the latter is represented by the hand. The phallus germinates while the
hand produces. Thus, with this interpolation, Leone may very well be tacitly
Judaizing Boccaccio’s interpretation through a distinction between ‘asiyah and
beriah.
In addition, one might wonder about the “mighty hand” and the “stretched
forth” arm of Demogorgon, which for Leone’s Filone signifies the particularly
strange and miraculous, but which is not singled out by Boccaccio. Perhaps
this relates to the “mighty hand and the outstretched arm”12 that, within Jewish
thought, represents the miraculous redemption of Israel. This possibility is
given support by Isaac Abravanel’s commentary on the Passover Haggadah
entitled Zevah Pesah, which he penned in 1496 and which was certainly known
to Leone.13 In fact, Leone wrote an introductory poem of approbation for the
work, which appears in the printed editions of 1557 and 1592. Within Zevah
Pesah, Leone’s father makes the claim that the land of Egypt was so full of
“tumult” that no slave could possibly leave.14 They were in effect closed up
within the land “with twenty four keys” due to its very tumultuous nature,
until God extracted them from there through the forty-nine gates of under-
standing given to Moses, “with a mighty hand and an outstretched arm.”15 Isaac
explains: “This means that He overturned the upper orders and He changed
the nature of the heavens with His mighty hand, and the nature of the upper
ministers that move them with His outstretched arm.”16 In other words, this
was no ordinary miracle, and it involved the direct reaction of God to His own
order, and His direct intervention within His divine retinue.
It is impossible to determine whether or not Leone had all of this in mind
when commenting on Boccaccio’s passage. Nevertheless, the parallels between
father and son are indeed striking: While for Isaac, the tumultuous and closed
up earth is Egypt, for Leone it is Chaos. For Isaac, Israel goes through a birth-like

12  Deuteronomy 26:8; Psalm 136:12.

13  For the dating of this work, see: Lawee, Isaac Abarbanel’s Stance Toward Tradition, 50.
14  Isaac explicitly connects “tumult” to the Hebrew name for Egypt: ‫מצרים‬, which can
indeed also mean “turmoil” or “tumult.”
15  As we recall, these forty-nine gates are related to yovel cycles of redemption for the entire
cosmos. The connection does not seem to be coincidental.
16  Isaac Abravanel, Sefer Zevah Pesah (Cremona: Vicenzo Conte, 1556), 12b: '‫'ויוציאנו יי‬
‫' רוצה לומר ששדד המערכות העליונות ושנה הטבעים‬.‫אלהינו משם ביד חזקה ובזרוע נטויה‬
.‫בידו החזקה על השמים ובזרועו הנטויה על השרים העליונים המניעים אותם‬
156 Chapter 8

extraction, while for Leone, that birth-like extraction is of the All as repre-
sented by Pan. Finally, both father and son explicitly refer to the mighty hand
and outstretched arm as symbols of an extraordinary miracle. In this light, it is
quite possible that Leone’s reference to the “mighty hand” of Demogorgon as
signifying that which is “strange and miraculous” is a latently Jewish reading of
this pagan tale.
A more blatantly Jewish reading of the pagan creation story invoked by
Leone surfaces in regard to Strife, who, according to the above narrative, was
the first offspring to emerge from Chaos. As we recall, he “wished to fly towards
the heavens,” but was cast down by Demogorgon. Filone further recounts
regarding Strife and his counterpart Opposition: “Strife and Opposition in the
first creation rose to heaven because they are made of fire and water, but they
did not remain there afterwards; rather, they were cast down from heaven to
live continuously on earth, where successive generation happens because of
their constant opposition.”17 He explains that their move toward the heavens
has to do with their composition and their striving after their own likenesses.
In order to illustrate this point, he invokes the rabbinic reading utilized
and exposited by all three of his predecessors discussed above, of shamayim
(the heavens) as composed of esh (fire) and mayim (water). He unequivo-
cally states: “The Hebrew name for the heavens is sc’amaym, and it is inter-
preted as exmaim, which in Hebrew means ‘fire and water.’ ”18 Nevertheless,
the characteristics of Strife and Opposition that describe the relations of
fire and water do not remain in the heavens. In this assertion, he holds ideas
similar to all of his predecessors discussed here. Similar to his father Isaac,
he states that “heavenly bodies are not corruptible, but only the lower ones
are, because among them there is opposition, and opposition is the cause of
decay.”19 Similar to all of his predecessors, he seems to want to neutralize the
elemental aspect of the heavens as fire and water, since elementally composite
entities are given over to decomposition. But unlike all of his predecessors,
including his father Isaac, Leone neutralizes the problematics of decomposi-
tion and decay through a unique appeal to Boccaccio’s Demogorgon, who casts
Strife and Opposition down into the sublunar realm. For Leone, the rabbinic

17  Dialogues, 117; Dialoghi, 96: il Litigio e la Contrarietà ne la prima creazione salirono in
cielo perché son fatti di fuoco e d’acqua, ma non restorono lì successivamente, anzi
furono gittati di cielo ad ad abitare cintinuamente in terra, ne la quale si fa la successive
generazione con la continua contrarietà.
18  Ibid.: il nome ebraico de’ cieli, che è sc’amaym e s’interpreta exmaim, che vuol dire in
ebraico “fuoco e acqua.”
19  Dialogues, 117; Dialoghi, 95: li corpi celesti non son corruttibili, ma solamente gl’inferiori,
per essere tra loro contrarietà: ché la contrarietà è causa de la corruzione.
Chaos And Divine Spirit 157

dictum informs Boccaccio’s pagan fable, but at the same time, the pagan fable
uniquely informs the rabbinic idea of creation in regard to the heavens.
In the third dialogue, Leone brings the discussion of the incorruptibility
of the heavens away from Boccaccio and Midrash and into the realm of both
Platonic and kabbalistic thought. In regard to Plato, Leone’s Filone turns to the
Timaeus, in which the demiurge, who is parallel to Boccaccio’s Demogorgon,
addresses the pantheon as follows:

Gods, divine works of which I am the craftsman and father, anything cre-
ated by me is imperishable unless I will it. Any bond can be unbound, but
to want to destroy a structure of beauty and goodness is a mark of evil.
Hence, although as created beings you are not altogether immortal and
indestructible, still you shall not perish nor shall death ever be your lot,
since you have been granted the protection of my will, as a stronger and
mightier bond than those with which you were bound at your creation.20

For Filone, the gods addressed here refer to those things that are “celestial,” or
the heavens themselves, which are imperishable because they are not subject
to generation and corruption like terrestrial existents. “Nevertheless,” Filone
states, “I believe that with these words, Plato did not posit that the heavens are
eternally indissoluble.”21 This leads to questions of the nature of the dissolubil-
ity of the heavens in relation to the dissolubility of the earth and the temporal
duration of both upper and lower bodies. In order to answer these questions,
Filone turns to the cyclical notions of shmittot and yovelot.
Filone asserts: “The theologians who were more ancient than Plato, of
whom he was a disciple, already say that the inferior world is corrupted and
renewed every seven thousand years.”22 This is a clear reference to the ­shmittah
cycles, and here Plato is anachronistically being made into a disciple of the
Talmudic rabbis, who, as we recall from Alemanno, but who are also quoted by
both Pico and Isaac, state that “the world will exist for six millennia and will be
desolate for one millennium.”23 Paralleling the rabbinic notion, Filone indeed

20  Plato, Timaeus and Critias 41a–b, translated by Robin Waterfield with an introduction and
notes by Andrew Gregory (Oxford: Oxford University Press), 30.
21  Dialoghi 210: Ma io credo che per queste parole Platone non ponga li cieli in eterno
indissolubili.”
22  Dialoghi 211: Già li teologi più antichi di Platone, de’ quali lui fu discepulo, dicono che ‘l
mondo inferior si corrompe e rinnouva di sette in sette milia anni.
23  BT Rosh Ha-Shanah 31a; Sanhedrin 97a. The question of Hebrew prisca theologia in the
Dialoghi is complex, and it does not always refer to Kabbalah in the conventional sense
of the word. Here it seems to relate to the rabbinic idea rather than anything blatantly
158 Chapter 8

goes on to explain that the corruption of the earth, caused by a decomposition

of the elements, will be in the sixth millennium. At this point, all things will
be gathered into Chaos. Then Chaos will rest for a millennium and will then
become re-impregnated to give birth to a new beginning for the lower entities.
Unlike Alemanno, for whom the process of shmittot is given over to debate as
we should recall, for Leone, the process is quite clear. It explains the exhorta-
tion of the demiurge in the Timaeus that “any bond can be unbound” in that
decomposition and recomposition mark the cycles of the sublunar realm.
But the questions still remain, as posed by Filone’s interlocutor Sophia:
“When will the heavens be corrupted?”24 And “How do intelligent souls,
angels, and pure intelligences share in this corruption of the world?”25 To
answer these questions, Filone naturally turns to the theory of yovelot. After
seven earthly cycles, or seven times seven thousand years, “heaven will dissolve
with all that it encompasses, and everything will revert to Chaos and prime
matter.”26 Nonmaterial entities will be preserved as ideas in the divine intellect.
Like in the shorter cycles, Chaos will remain idle for a time, and will then be
re-impregnated with the divine ideas in order to once again give birth to the
beginning of all of existence. The question arises as to whether this process
of beginnings and endings ever had a beginning (and implicitly, whether it will
ever have an ending), to which Filone categorically answers in the negative.
Unlike his predecessors, Leone does not turn the yovel into either an enig-
matic or a kabbalistic process. In fact, he sees both the shmittah and the yovel
as natural processes supported by reason. In his opinion, it is only the times-
pans assigned for the processes that are given over to kabbalistic reception
based on the recounting of cycles of seven within the Torah, and even here,
“Kabbalah” seems to stand for the received tradition more generally defined.
In fact, there are no theosophical elements in the discussion whatsoever, nor
is there any other indication of kabbalistic reading or influence. But even in
regard to the rabbinic tradition as a received “Kabbalah,” Filone warns Sophia:
“I will tell you what they say, though I do not persuade you to believe it, because
their evidence in the texts is not clear, but figurative.”27 Here Leone is showing
a clear reticence to a reading of cosmology based purely on received tradition.

kabbalistic. I hope to treat some of these nuances elsewhere. For a good treatment of the
subject in relation to Kabbalah specifically, see Idel, “Kabbalah and Ancient Philosophy.”
24  Dialogues, 236.
25  Ibid., 237.
26   Dialogues, 236; Dialoghi, 211: si viene a dissolvere il cielo con tutto il pieno, e torna ogni
cosa al Caos e alla material prima.
27   Dialogues, 239; Dialoghi, 214: Ti dirò ciò che dicono, il che non ti persuado che tenghi, però
che l’evidenzia loro ne li testi non è chiara, ma figurativa.
Chaos And Divine Spirit 159

Reason is a guiding principle; tradition can be helpful, but only as figurative

metaphor. Herein we have another example of a universalizing tendency
within Leone’s thought.
Nevertheless, Leone is dialectically challenged by the fact that he is moored
within the Jewish tradition and is heavily influenced by his father who, as we
have seen, asserts a strong conviction in creation ex nihilo. Thus, for Leone,
the idea that Chaos as prime matter that eternally stands side-by-side with
God, whether cast as Boccaccio’s Demogorgon or Plato’s demiurge, is highly
problematic. To assert that even during periods of rest Chaos exists as an inde-
pendent entity is to assert a duality. This is problematic not only for religious
reasons of asserting the oneness of God, but for logical reasons as well since,
as Boccaccio himself remarks, it is ridiculous to believe that “it would not have
been possible for him who was able to give form to various things to produce
the material from which he could do so.”28 In fact, Leone, who traces the idea
back to the Timaeus, concurs with Boccaccio, writing that “since God is the
creator of all things, it is also necessary that he produced the matter of all gen-
erated things.”29 Nevertheless, he adds an important corrective that helps to
align Plato with the Jewish tradition and that salvages the idea as displayed
by Pronapides’ fable: “It is not wrong to say that it [i.e., Chaos, or prime mat-
ter] was produced by God ab eterno, just as Eve, created from Adam, was his
companion and consort, and all the other human beings were born from these
two.”30 Just as the biblical Eve is cotemporally connected to Adam in that she
is produced from him, is a help meet for him,31 and is the mother of all life,32 so
too on the macrocosmic level, Chaos is connected to God from eternity in that
it is produced by Him ab eterno, is God’s hylomorphic counterpart and consort,
and is the universal mother.
This still seems problematic; how can this now biblically framed idea of
Chaos as produced ab eterno be reconciled, if at all, with Filone’s later state-
ment that Plato’s understanding of Chaos as eternally created by God is an
idea that “the faithful do not believe”? Filone further explains that the faithful,
i.e., believing Jews, “hold that up to the time of creation God alone existed

28  Boccaccio, Genealogy of the Pagan Gods, 47.

29  Dialogues, 116; Dialoghi, 94: perché, essendo Iddio produttore di tutte le cose, bisogna
ancora che abbi produtto la material de la quale sono generate. For the Platonic reference,
see Timaeus 30a.
30  Dialogues, 116; Dialoghi, 94: Non manca che essa non sia ab eterno produtta da Dio, sì
come Eva, essendo produtta da Adam, gli fu compagna e consorte, e tutti gli altri uomini
nati di tutti due.
31  Genesis 2:18.
32  Genesis 3:20.
160 Chapter 8

without the world and without Chaos, and that the omnipotence of God cre-
ated all things out of nothing in the beginning of time. Indeed,” he states,
“Moses nowhere gives any clear indication that he held matter to be coeternal
with God.”33 Some commentators have claimed that Filone’s mention of “the
faithful” here is only a sympathetic explanation and not an endorsement, and
that Filone actually opts for the Platonic view espoused above, of the creation
of matter ab eterno rather than the Mosaic view of the creation of matter ex
nihilo.34 The exact opposite, however seems to be more in line with Leone’s
thinking here. As expressed by João Vila-Chã, for Leone, “the claim for truth
attached to the name of Plato can be made only as long as the Philosopher of
Greece is recognized as being one with the Bible.”35 Indeed, one need not look
much further in the text of the Dialoghi in relation to the discussion at hand
to see Filone’s explicit alliance with Moses: “We believe,” Filone states, plac-
ing himself firmly within the camp of the faithful, “that, although the heavens
and prime matter are naturally neither generable nor corruptible, they were
originally created out of nothing with the whole of creation, by miraculous and
divine agency.”36 Filone, along with “the faithful,” believes in creation ex nihilo.

33  Dialogues, 228; Dialoghi, 203: È ben vero che lui fa il Caos (di che le cose son fatte) eterno,
cioè eternalmente prodotto da Dio; la qual cosa non tengono li fideli: perché loro tengono
che fino a l’ora de la creazione solo Dio fosse in essere, senza mondo e senza Caos, e che
l’onnipotenzia di Dio di nulla tutte le cose in principio di tempo abbi produtto, ché in
effetto non par già chiaramente in Moises ch’el ponga materia coeterna a Dio.
34  This is the argument perhaps tacitly put forth by Seymour Feldman, who explains that
after presenting the Aristotelian doctrine of an eternal universe, the Platonic doctrine
of temporal creation from eternal matter, and the biblical doctrine of creation ex nihilo,
“Leone has not definitely committed himself to any of these doctrines, although he
seems to favor the Platonic view as he interprets it” (Philosophy in a Time of Crisis, 179;
“as he interprets it” is not in relation to the temporal creation of hylic matter, like Isaac
Abravanel, which would put him in line with the bible, but, for Feldman, it is in relation to
the kabbalistic idea of cosmic cycles, which we briefly discussed above). The argument is
explicitly put forth in Andrew Gluck, Judah Abrabanel’s Philosophy of Love and Kabbalah
(Lewiston, Queenston, Lampeter: The Edwin Mellen Press, 2012), 461–462: “When the lit-
eral statements of Plato and Moses conflict, but the meaning of the biblical passage is not
entirely clear, he seems usually to opt for a Platonic interpretation. This seems obvious,
for example, when Philo appears to believe in some kind of eternity of matter or chaos.”
Gluck continues, concerning the passage quoted above: “This reference to ‘the faithful’
seems to me to be a sympathetic explanation for why they have certain beliefs but by no
means an endorsement of those beliefs.”
35  Vila-Chã, 412.
36  Dialogues, 230; Dialoghi, 205: Diciamo che, se ben il cielo e la materia prima sono natural-
mente ingenerabili e incorruttibili, niente di meno miracolosamente, per onnipotenzia
divina, ne l’assoluta creazione furno in principio create di nulla.
Chaos And Divine Spirit 161

How then, is one to reconcile this with the prior claim to production
ab eterno? The problem is not easily solved. If Filone holds to creation ex nihilo,
then matter cannot be coeternal with the divine, even by way of eternal cau-
sality. For Leone, the Mosaic God, like Pronapnides’ Demogorgon, was at rest
in Eternity, and is so in every major cycle prior to the creation of time and the
temporal creation of the All; but seemingly unlike the account of Demogorgon,
God was alone, without Chaos, which even if it were eternally caused, would
have naturally disturbed both His oneness and His rest. Thus, the previously
mentioned explanation of the Greek fable in terms of the bible, i.e., that
Chaos “was produced by God ab eterno, just as Eve, ­created from Adam, was
his companion and consort,”37 still seems problematic. Problematic too is
Leone’s explanation of the return of all material entities to Chaos during the
yovel. Nevertheless, a turn to another discussion in which Leone juxtaposes
Greek mythology and biblical narrative may be able to some shed light on his
attempted cosmogonic, macrocosmic concordance. This is his lengthy micro-
cosmic discussion of the androgyne.38 In fact, it may be the previously men-
tioned turn to Adam and Eve as a microcosmic parallel to the macrocosm of
God as Form and Chaos as Matter, in light of Leone’s discussion of the andro-
gyne, that holds the key to an understanding of his conflation of the ex nihilo
and ab eterno creation of matter.

37  Dialogues, 116; Dialoghi, 94. Non manca che essa non sia ab eterno produtta da Dio, sì
come Eva, essendo produtta da Adam, gli fu compagna e consorte, e tutti gli altri uomini
nati di tutti due.
38  The treatments of this topic are vast, and it is not my intention here to merely repeat
previous scholarship. Instead, I hope to show how the myth plays into an understanding
of Leone’s hylomorphic, and what I perceive to be a fairly radical pantheistic cosmogony,
which is an aspect of the myth that has not been widely studied. For representative treat-
ments of Leone’s understanding of the myth of the androgyne, see: Diana de Armas Wilson,
Allegories of Love: Cervantes’s Persiles and Sigismunda (Princeton: Princeton University
Press, 1991), 93–105; Naomi Yavneh, “The Spiritual Eroticism of Leone’s Hermaphrodite,” in
Playing With Gender: A Renaissance Pursuit, ed. Jean R. Brink, Maryanne C. Horowitz, and
Allison P. Coudert, (Urbana and Chicago: University of Illinois Press, 1991): 85–98; Rosella
Pescatori, “The Myth of the Androgyne in Leone Ebreo’s Dialogues of Love,” Comitatus
vol. 38 (2007): 115–128; Sergius Kodera, “Renaissance Readings of the Myth of Aristophanes
from Plato’s Symposium (189C–193D): Marsilio Ficino, Leone Ebreo, Giordano Bruno,”
Quaderni d’italianistica, vol. XXI, no. 1 (2005): 21–58 [reprinted in Kodera, Disreputable
Bodies: Magic, Medicine, and Gender in Renaissance Natural Philosophy, (Toronto: Centre
for Reformation and Renaissance Studies, 2010), 213–250]; Idel, Kabbalah and Eros, 88–92;
idem, “The Myth of the Androgyne in Leone Ebreo’s Dialoghi d’amore and its Cultural
Implications,” Kabbalah: Journal for the Study of Jewish Mystical Texts, vol. 15 (2006):
77–102; Naftali Rothenberg, Wisdom of Love: Man, Woman & God in Jewish Canonical
Literature, (Boston: Academic Studies Press, 2009), 44–53.
162 Chapter 8

In his second dialogue, Leone forthrightly puts forth his macrocosmic-

microcosmic thinking, in a way that sets up his eventual microcosmic discus-
sion of the androgyne, which itself leads beyond the macrocosm to God. There
Sophia states: “I always understood that man is the likeness not only of the
heavens, but also of the whole corporeal and incorporeal universe together.”39
To this, Filone answers in the affirmative:

Precisely it is; man is the image of the whole universe, and because of
this the Greeks call him “microcosm,” which means little world. However,
man, as well as any other perfect animal, contains in itself the male and
female, because its species is continued through both, not through either
by itself. And therefore not only in the Latin language does homo mean the
male and the female; but even more so in the Hebrew language, which is
the eldest and the source of all the other languages, Adam, which means
man, signifies male and female, and its meaning includes both together.40

One way of understanding this is that humanity as a general concept is a simu-

lacrum of the universe, containing within itself both masculine and feminine
elements that represent the corporeal and the incorporeal, the hylomorphic
make-up of existence. Nevertheless, later discussion, precisely concerning
Adam, links him to the myth of the androgyne and indicates a singularity that
perhaps includes the general concept of humanity but that points beyond it.
In a now famous passage in the third dialogue, Filone recounts the fable of
the androgyne as told by the playwright Aristophanes in Plato’s Symposium.41
In line with the idea of temporal creation, Filone recounts that “in the begin-
ning, humanity, being another, third species of humans composed not only
of men or only of women, but both male and female together, called ‘andro-
gyne,’ . . . was great and strong and terrible.”42 The form of this species was

39  Dialogues, 96; Dialoghi, 74: Io ho sempre inteso che l’uomo è simulacro non solamente del
cielo, ma di tutto l’universo corporeo e incorporeo insieme.
40  Ibid.: Così è la verità: che l’uomo è imagine di tutto l’universo, e per questo li greci li chia-
mano “microcosmos”, che vuol dire piccol mondo. Niente di manco l’uomo, e così ogni
altro animale perfetto, contine in sé maschio e femina, perché la sua spezie si salva in
amendue e non in un sol di loro. E perciò non solamente ne la lingua latina uomo significa
il maschio e la femina; ma ancor ne la lingua ebrea, antichissima madre e origine di tutte
le lingue, Adam, che vuol dire uomo, significa maschio e femina, e nel suo proprio signifi-
cato contiene ambidui insieme.
41  See Plato, Symposium, in The Collected Works of Plato, 4th edition, translated by Benjamin
Jowett (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1953), 189c–193e (pp. 520–525).
42  See Dialogues, 273; here I translate differently than Pescatori and Bacich, as based on
the gerund form “essendo” and as based on the context, which seems to change the
Chaos And Divine Spirit 163

almost circular, which gave it its great power and dexterity, with which it even-
tually challenged and threatened the gods. Jove thus decided to divide the
androgyne into two in order to limit its power. From that time forward, the
newly created half-creatures sought reintegration through mutual embrace.
Filone concludes his recounting:

Love is therefore in every human being, male and female, but each of
them is half a human being and is not a whole human being, such that
each half desires reintegration with its other half. Therefore, according to
this legend, human love was born out of the division of the human being,
and its progenitors were the two halves, the male and female, who have
the goal of reintegration.43

Of great importance here is the emphasis upon the gendered reintegra-

tion of the male and the female. Several scholars have pointed to this as
Leone’s attempt to whitewash the homosexual elements out of the original
Aristophanic telling, in which three species of male-male, male-female, and
female-female pairs existed before the separation, only to reunite in love after
the separation.44 Scholars have also indicated that the male-female pair does
not necessarily relate to two distinct individuals that become reintegrated,
but to the intellectual and the corporeal aspects of a single individual,
which need to be integrated for individual harmony.45 Still further, schol-
ars have pointed to the concept of the unity of opposites first posited by the
pre-Socratics and made popular by the fifteenth century German polymath
Nicholas of Cusa, and the bi-polar nature of the cosmos. In the artful words
of Naomi Yavneh, Leone’s androgyne represents “a dualistic cosmos governed
by a system of universal hermaphrodism: Whereas eros is the copula mundi of
Neoplatonic cosmology, Leone explicitly depicts that copula as heterosexual

Aristophanic account of three species into one, androgynous species. Dialoghi, 249:
essendo nel principio degli uomini un altro terzo genere di uomini, cioè non solamente
uomini e non solamente donne, ma quello che chiamavano “androgeno,” il quale era mas-
chio e femmina insiem . . . era adunque quello androgeno grande, forte e terribile.
43  See Dialogues, 274; translation here is mine from Dialoghi, 250: è adunque l’amor in
­ciascuno degli uomini, maschio e femmina, però che ognuno di loro è mezzo uomo e
non uomo intero, onde ogni mezzo desia la reintegrazione sua con l’altro mezzo. Nacque
adunque, secondo questa favola, l’amore umano de la divisione de l’uomo, e li suoi pro-
genitori furono li dui sui mezzi, il maschio e la femmina, a fine di loro reintegrazione.
44  Kodera, Disreputable Bodies, 231; Rothenberg, Wisdom of Love, 46–47; Yavneh,
“The Spiritual Eroticism,” 89; Vila- Chã, 869–870.
45  Idel, Kabbalah and Eros, 89; Kodera, Disreputable Bodies, 232–233; Yavneh, “The Spiritual
Eroticism,” 94; Angela Guidi, Amour et Sagesse, 105.
164 Chapter 8

copulation.”46 This last point relates back to the hylomorphic nature of the
universe. However, I would argue that this hylomorphism does not reflect a
true bi-polarity, but rather an ultimately integrated nature of singleness within
God. God is one, prior to masculine and feminine, which are seemingly two, but
which are really each only one half. In order to create, there is a need for self-
division and copulation; but this ultimately reflects a oneness that is beyond
creation but that permeates creation through the process of reintegration.
As with the Judaic reading that Leone gives to the fable of Demogorgon
and Chaos by turning to the story of Adam and Eve, so too here, in order to
illustrate the masculine-feminine divide out of the androgyne and to moor it
within Jewish thought, Filone resorts to the story of Adam and Eve. In fact,
Filone explicitly states concerning Aristophanes’ story of the androgyne: “The
fable comes from a tradition that was referred by an author more ancient than
the Greeks, that is, the sacred history of Moses concerning the creation of the
first human parents, Adam and Eve.”47 He proceeds to point out a discrepancy
between Genesis 1:27, which states that God created the first human “in His
own image . . . male and female,” and Genesis 2:7 and 2:21–22, which states that
the first man was created singular and that woman was only later formed from
his side or rib. Filone concludes that this is not in fact a discrepancy, but actu-
ally points to a deeper meaning that is hidden here and that is the source of the
Greek androgyne tradition:

It means that Adam, that is, the “first man,” whom God created on the
sixth day of the Creation, being a human individual, contained in himself
male and female without division; and therefore the text says that God
created Adam in His own likeness, male and female created He them. And
at one time it speaks of Adam in the singular as a man (Adam, one man),
at another in the plural (male and female He created them) to denote that,
being one individual, he contained in himself both male and female.
Wherefore the ancient Jewish commentators in their Chaldean language
here say, “Adam was created of two persons, the one part male, the other
female.”48 Moreover, the last text, which says that God created Adam
male and female and called their name Adam, they interpret as meaning

46  Yavneh, 86; This is repeated in Pescatori, “The Myth of the Androgyne,” 123, and in Vila-
Chã, 266. See also Kodera, Disreputable Bodies, 244, and Idel, Kabbalah and Eros, 90.
47  Dialogues, 274; Dialoghi, 251: La favola è tràdita da autore più antico delli greci, cioè da la
sacra istoria di Moisè de la creazione delli primi parenti umani, Adam ed Eva.
48  At first glance, the phrase “two persons” here seems like a strange deviation from the orig-
inal Midrashic ‫פרצופין‬-‫דו‬, “two countenances,” but the Italian word “persone,” originally
meaning “masks,” is related to the Greek πρόσωπον (prosōpon), from which the Aramaic
Chaos And Divine Spirit 165

that Adam alone contained both sexes, and that there was first an indi-
vidual called Adam, because the woman was never called Eve until she
was separated from the male, Adam.49

Some scholars have made the claim that the “ancient Jewish commentators”
mentioned here refer to the Zohar.50 This assumption seems to be based on the
inaccurate rendering in the Soncino English translation of the Italian “lingua
caldea” as “Chaldean commentary.”51 A more appropriate translation would be
“Chaldean language,” and while the Zohar as the source is a possibility, I would
caution against what I would deem the “over-Zoharization” of the Dialoghi.52
Although Moshe Idel posits the Zohar as a probable source, he appropriately
states that “there is nothing intrinsically Kabbalistic in the concept”53 being
discussed here by Leone. I would take this admonishment a step further and
say that not only is the concept non-kabbalistic, it is also non-Zoharic. In truth,
there is no mention of the Zohar here, or anywhere within the Dialoghi for
that matter. Moreover, there is nothing inherently Zoharic in Leone’s thought
throughout, and there is no clear evidence that Leone utilized the Zohar as a
source, either here or anywhere else.

partzufin ultimately derives. For more on the subtle complexity being portrayed here, of
the personae of man, and ultimately of God, see Kodera, Disreputable Bodies, 235–236.
49  Dialogues, 277; Dialoghi, 253: Vuol dire che Adam, cioè “uomo primo,” il qual Dio creò nel
dì sesto de la creazione, essendo un supposto umano conteneva in sé maschio e femmina
senza divisione; e però dice che “Dio creò Adam ad imagine di Dio, maschio e femmina
creò quelli”: una volt ail chiama in singular (Adam, uno uomo), l’altra volt ail chiama in
plural (“maschio e femmina creò quelli”), per denotare che, sendo un supposto, conte-
neva maschio e femmina insieme. Però comentano qui li comentatori ebraici antichi in
lingua caldea, dicendo: “Adam di due persone fu creato, d’una parte maschio, da l’altra
femmina”; e questo dichiara nell’ultimo il testo, dicendo che Dio creò Adam maschio e
femmina, e chiamò il nome loro Adam, che dichiarò solo Adam contenere tutti due, e
che prima un supposto fatto d’ambidue si chiamava Adam, però che non si chiamò mai la
femmina Eva, fin che non fu divisa dal suo maschio Adam.
50  Idel, Kabbalah and Eros, 89; idem, “The Myth of the Androgyne,” 86; Pescatori, “The Myth
of the Androgyne,” 123. Some Zoharic passages that discuss this idea are: Zohar I:2b, 22b;
II:55a, 3:117a.
51  León Hebreo, The Philosophy of Love (Dialoghi d’amore), translated by F. Friedberg-Seely
and Jean H. Barnes, (London: Soncino Press, 1937), 349. This translation is in fact the
version cited by Idel in his various expositions, and Idel seems to have influenced other
scholars with his attribution of the “Chaldean commentary” here with the Zohar.
52  See Pescatori, “Introduction” in Dialogues of Love, 15; idem, “The Myth of the Androgyne,”
118; Vila- Chã, 349.
53  Idel, Kabbalah and Eros, 89.
166 Chapter 8

In this instance, the “Chaldean language” mentioned by Leone’s Filone is

most probably not a reference to an entire commentary written in Aramaic,
such as the Zohar, but it is more probably a reference to the specific term du-
partzufin, i.e., “two persons,” or “two countenances,” which indeed shows up
in its Aramaic form in Vayikra Rabbah 14:1. Moreover, this Midrash, which is
repeated in Bereshit Rabbah 8:1, continues in part in Aramaic, and the tenor of
Filone’s discussion is very much in line with the Midrash. For example, Filone
recounts that God caused a sleep to fall upon Adam and, in Filone’s language,
“took one of his sides (the word in Hebrew being equivalent to rib, but here
and elsewhere it stands for ‘side’), that is, the side or feminine person that was
behind Adam’s shoulders.”54
Filone’s discussion is a precise parallel to the classical Midrash, which states,
perhaps not coincidentally in Aramaic, that an objection was raised to the idea of
the evenly split androgyne, based on the verse in Genesis And He took one of his ribs
(Genesis 2:21). The Midrash continues with the same answer as that given by Filone:
the term tzela’ should not be read here as one of his ribs, but as “ ‘one of his sides’, as
it is written: And for the second side (tzela’) of the t­ abernacle (Exodus 26:20).”55 It is
safe to assume that Leone would have been familiar with this Midrash, at least as
much, if not more so than he was with Zoharic literature; and given the proxim-
ity of his thought to the classical Midrash, as well as the usage of Aramaic there,
Occam’s razor would seem to cut the Zohar out of the picture. Leone is indeed
Judaizing the myth of Aristophanes by reference to “ancient Jewish commenta-
tors;” but he is not necessarily zoharizing it, or even kabbalizing it.
What is important for our purposes of reconciling Leone’s Jewish faith in
creation ex nihilo with his upholding of the Platonic causation of matter ab
eterno is his assertion of the singularity of the first man. This relates back to the
microcosmic idea of the second dialogue, that “man is the image of the whole
universe,” which also has precedent in the Midrash cited above: “When the
Holy One, blessed be He, created Adam, i.e., the first man, He created him from
one end of the universe to the other; he filled the entire universe.”56 Here man
as a microcosmic simulacrum for the universe is replaced by the first man as a
truly universal individual, and according to Leone in the above passage from
the third dialogue, that first universal individual is a simulacrum for the divine.
This is similar to Alemanno’s tohu as both the grounding element of existence
and as a symbol pointing beyond existence and beyond itself to the divine;

54  Dialogues, 278.

55   Vayyikra Rabbah 14:1 and Bereshit Rabbah 8:1: ‫איתיבין ליה (בראשית ב) ויקח אחת מצלעותיו‬
‫אמר להן מסטרוהי כדכתיב (שמות כו) ולצלע המשכן השנית‬
56   Vayyikra Rabbah 14:1: ‫אמר רבי ברכיה ורבי חלבו ורבי שמואל בר נחמן בשעה שברא הקב״ה‬
.‫אדם הראשון מסוף העולם ועד סופו מלא כל העולם כולו‬
Chaos And Divine Spirit 167

but here in Leone, it is decidedly both masculine and feminine at once, both
incorporeal and corporeal, both formal and material, without division. Adam,
as a simulacrum of God, is prior to division, and thus is prior to the notions of
man and woman, as well as other demarcations of opposition. It is thus not
a true coincidence of opposites, but rather, in the words of Elliot Wolfson as
influenced by Friedrich Schelling, it is “a unity that embraces the disjunction
of opposites coexisting as non-opposites.”57
So how does this relate to hylomorphism and the question of creation ex
nihilo vs. ab eterno? If God existed in eternity as a unity of the disjoined non-
opposites of masculine Spirit as form and feminine Chaos as matter, which
only took form and became opposites with the separation of Chaos from Divine
Spirit, then Chaos can be said to be both; it is ab eterno in its state of unity, and
it is ex nihilo at the point of separation. This raises the question: If Chaos as
matter can be seen in this light, then why too not divine Spirit as form? Why is
the question of form ex nihilo or ab eterno not discussed? Why is the woman
called Eve only when she is separated from the male, while the first, androgy-
nous human being is called Adam, and maintains his identity as such even as
the male separated from the female? Leone clearly privileges the male, thereby
lending support to Elliot Wolfson’s contention that in medieval and early mod-
ern Jewish thought, “the reconstituted androgyne . . . would not imply an egal-
itarian leveling of difference; on the contrary, the ideal is expressive of and
further substantiates the hierarchical ontology of gender difference.”58 Despite
Leone’s aim for unity and harmony through his theory of the androgyne and of
reintegration, the gender binary paradoxically persists.
Another elucidation from Filone further illustrates this point:

God is neither formed, nor does He have a form, but is supreme abso-
lute form from which Chaos and all its parts take their form. The world,
together with every part of it, was made and formed from both. Their
father is that divine form, and the mother is Chaos, both from eternity.
But the perfect father produced out of himself the single substance, and
imperfect mother, and all worlds are made and formed anew out of both,
their children, in which matter is combined with paternal form. This is
why Plato asserts, and not without reason, that Chaos was created by God
from eternity, and that the world with its parts is made and formed anew
by Him in the Creation.59

57  Wolfson, Alef, Mem, Tau, 34.

58  Wolfson, Language, Eros, Being, 52.
59  Dialogues, 233; Dialoghi, 208: Dio non è format né ha forma, ma è somma forma in se
stessa; dal quale il Caos e ogni parte sua participa forma: e d’ambi si fece il mondo format
168 Chapter 8

Clear here is the idea of the “perfect father” who is God, i.e., absolute form, and
the “imperfect mother” who is Chaos, i.e., matter. Clear also is the idea that the
father produced the mother “out of himself.” In this sense, she is really of the
same divine essence as the father. The two were really one in eternity, and both
are ab eterno, i.e., “from eternity.” But “Chaos was created by God ab eterno,” ex
nihilo. In other words, Chaos was created not from eternity as a temporal state,
but out of Eternity as a conditional state. In line with both the transformed
myth of Demogorgon and the Judaized Plato, here the idea is that God was
at rest alone in Eternity, and produced Chaos from that place, out of Himself.
Brian Copenhaver has noted: “Although Judah’s [i.e., Leone’s] syncretism
often seems open to a pantheist metaphysics, he is careful on this point, per-
haps because his father cared so much about it.” Copenhaver goes on: “In order
to protect his biblical monotheism from evaporating in pantheism, he proposes
a Father God who creates—not ex nihilo, however, but from the eternally cre-
ated Mother of chaos.”60 Copenhaver’s insight is important, and he seems to
be entirely correct concerning fatherly influence: since Leone’s father cared so
much, Leone proposes a Father god who creates from Chaos. However, Leone
seems concerned about his father’s care not about pantheism, but about cre-
ation ex nihilo, and it is precisely in keeping with his father’s notion here that
he slips into a form of pantheism. For Leone, Chaos is ultimately a part of God,
which when unified with its formal element, creates a veritably pantheistic
whole.61 In such a way, Leone is able to maintain a Platonized sense of creation
ex nihilo like his father. In so doing, like both Alemanno and Pico, Leone pre-
serves a positive yet hierarchically gendered element that is both cosmic and
divine, but that also, in its own unique manner, enters into the realm of the
individual as a microcosm.

e ogni parte sua formata, il padre de’ quali è quella divina formalità e la madre è il Caos,
ambo ab eterno. Ma il perfetto padre produsse da sé la sola sustanzia, imperfetta madre,
e d’ambi son fatti e formati di nuovo tutti li mondani figliuoli, quali hanno con la mate-
rial la formalità paterna; sì che per questa ragion non vana afferma Platone che ‘l Caos è
prodotto da Dio ab eterno e ch’il mondo con sue parti è fatto e format da lui di novo ne
la creazione.
60  Brian Copenhaver, “Forward,” in Leone Ebreo, Dialogues of Love, xii.
61  For a differing pantheistic interpretation of the Dialoghi, see Hubert Dethier, “Love and
Intellect in Leone Ebreo: The Joys and Pains of Human Passion,” in Neoplatonism and
Jewish Thought, edited by Lenn E. Goodman, (Albany: State University of New York Press,
1992), 353–386.
Concluding Remarks: On Sources and Influences in
Relation to “The Beginning”

As we come to the end of our discourse on the beginning, it is incumbent upon

us to consider the related questions of originality and influence. Indeed, on
the literal level, “originality” relates to the origin, or the source of something,
whereas “influence” relates to the influx that flows from that source, and in the
process, affects something else. The transitive correspondence between origi-
nality and influence implicates the “Beginning,” which, as we have seen for the
thinkers surveyed here, is the very intermediary that allows for an outpouring
from the Origin that is God. This is the case whether that beginning is linguisti-
cally or hypostatically cast, as in the case of Bereshit, or whether it is hylomor-
phic, as in the case of tohu and bohu. On the cosmic level, the Beginning is that
which connects the ineffable Source to that which it enigmatically influences,
i.e., creation. Without the Beginning, God as the Origin cannot even begin to
influence, or to effect, through the process of creation. Yet at the same time the
Beginning, by its very nature as that which has enigmatically begun to come
forth from the Origin, signifies rupture.
On the more mundane level too, origin and influx as dialectical markers
of beginning relate to the creative process, which also involves both effect
and rupture simultaneously. Edward Said has framed this dialectic in terms of
discontinuity:

With regard to what precedes it, a beginning represents, as I have said, a

discontinuity (whether or not decisively enforced) . . . What are the con-
ditions that allow us to call something a beginning? First of all, there must
be the desire, the will, and the true freedom to reverse oneself, to accept
thereby the risks of rupture and discontinuity; for whether one looks to
see where and when he began, or whether he looks in order to begin now,
he cannot continue as he is. It is, however, very difficult to begin with a
wholly new start. Too many old habits, loyalties, and pressures inhibit the
substitution of a novel enterprise for an established one.1

For Said, a beginning is a break; but at the same time, it is rarely if ever an entirely
novel enterprise. In fact, a beginning is liminal in that it stands between that
which precedes it and the novel enterprise which, by its definition, it begins.

1  Said, Beginnings, 34.

© koninklijke brill nv, leiden, ���6 | doi ��.��63/9789004330634_011

170 Concluding Remarks

Said calls this liminal act of beginning “discontinuity and transfer,” explaining,
“while in this act a clear break with the past is discernible, it must also ­connect
the new direction not so much with a wholly unique venture but with the
established authority of a parallel venture.”2 Framing this within our language
of originality and influence, it is fair to say that within Said’s characterization
of beginning, the origin remains separate, yet there is still some type of influ-
ence from the origin, or from the “established” enterprise, detected within the
“novel” enterprise.
Returning to our more cosmic stance as discussed throughout this book, it
is indeed possible to assert that the idea of discontinuity and transfer in regard
to the beginning applies to the question of the novelty of God at the very
Beginning, as understood by all four of our thinkers. As we have seen in their
thought, God’s influence, or His influx, comes through His hypostatic Wisdom,
which is the Beginning. It is also inserted into matter through His formal
element, thereby giving rise the beginning of existence. On both the hypo-
static plane and on the existential level, a trace of the Origin can be detected
within the beginning, and from there, into all subsequent creation. There is
thus a sense of “established authority” in the very process of Beginning, and
a ­“transfer” of divine desire and will into the novel creation, which is spatio-
temporal in nature.
At the same time, however, there is a rupture and a discontinuity from
the Origin that remains beyond. This is clearly discernable, for example, in
Alemanno’s and in Leone Ebreo’s notions of creation as an imperfect simula-
crum of a perfect God. A trace of God remains, yet it is only a representation
that is by necessity a discontinuous mis(re)presentation. God cannot remain
in His perfect state if He wants to begin to create; yet the new d­ irection of His
imperfect creation is established upon His very perfection, toward which it
constantly strives. Jonathan Garb has described this problematic of the simula-
crum of the divine in relation to time paradoxically as “atemporal temporality.”3
According to Garb, this is a state in which time discards its imitated nature
and somehow enters into eternity, even for the moment. Yet Garb notes, citing
the great twentieth century Jewish thinker Abraham Joshua Heschel, that each
moment of time remains only an “image of eternity in an infinite mosaic.”4
According to this way of thinking, the problems of simulation thus cannot be

2  Ibid., 33.
3  Jonathan Garb, “Soul Time in Modern Kabbalah,” in Time and Eternity in Jewish Mysticism:
That Which is Before and That Which is After, ed. Brian Ogren (Leiden and Boston: Brill, 2015),
158.
4  Ibid. Heschel seems here to be playing off of Plato, who famously states in his Timaeus 37d
that time “is a moving image of eternity.”
Concluding Remarks 171

fully overcome, even if they paradoxically can be momentarily ­eternalized.

There is in time, then, a cosmic sense of discontinuity from eternity, but also
simultaneously a transfer from the Eternal that makes time possible. This
transfer simultaneously makes possible a knowledge of eternity through the
medium of time.
The beginning is necessarily implicated in this sense of discontinuity and
transfer related to eternity and time. As tied to our notions of originality
and influence brought forth from the language of apophatic origin and
­emanatory influx, the beginning thus implicated provides a wonderful para-
digm for mooring an understanding of God’s creation as treated by the authors
discussed in this book. Not only do we see this idea of the beginning play out
in the dialectics of thought and speech as addressed by all of the authors, but
it is also apparent in their treatment of the tangible bet of Bereshit as the very
beginning, as opposed to the intangible alef that is beyond. It is also manifest,
as we have noted, in Alemanno’s notion of writing as simulation and in Ebreo’s
similar simulatory concept of art and beauty.5 Similarly, it comes to the fore
in Abravanel’s usage of the kabbalistic ideas of bodies and garments, and in
Pico’s notion of Truth as manifested by the hypostatic Jesus but as veiled by the
beginning, middle, and end of time.
Beginning as “discontinuity and transfer” standing between “originality and
influence” also bears upon the hylomorphic readings of tohu and bohu as cast
by Alemanno, Pico and Abravanel in sefirotic thought, and by Leone Ebreo in
the language of Greek mythology. For all four thinkers, both the formal and
the material elements of existence are beginnings without which creation
cannot take place; yet for all four, they are neither indestructible nor timeless.
In fact, they are both time-bound and constitutive of time, especially in their
­conjunction, and they are given over to destruction in cycles during which
everything enigmatically returns to the Source. For all of our thinkers, then,
tohu and bohu as related to chaos and form embody the Beginning as standing
apart from the eternal Source; yet they are still connected to it, they are con-
tinually influenced by it, and they constantly strive toward it.
Questions of originality and influence do not stop with the considerations
of Alemanno, Pico, Abravanel and Ebreo concerning the beginning of God’s
­creation. In fact, they apply just as equally to the textual and ideational

5  In his magisterial Manifestations of Power, Jonathan Garb discusses what I have referred to
here as the linguistic simulacrum, represented primarily by Alemanno, and the artistic simu-
lacrum, represented here by Leone, in regard to models of power. In his discussion, they are
the linguistic model and the visual model, respectively. He borrows from hypnotic literature,
tellingly referring to them as “representational systems.” For Garb’s full, detailed discussion,
see his Manifestations of Power, 142–173.
172 Concluding Remarks

creations of these four thinkers themselves. One question that can possibly
be pondered in this regard is whether these four thinkers were influencing
each other concerning their respective notions of the beginning; and even
though we have seriously considered such possibilities throughout, I would
like to offer a word of caution concerning such “sources and influences” type
of ­speculation. It is indeed tempting to hypothesize as to who may have influ-
enced whom and as to who was the “original” thinker amongst these four
thinkers, especially given the known relations between them. And indeed,
sometimes influence is clearly stated, as in the case of Leone Ebreo, who in
his Hebrew poem Telunah al ha-Zeman writes: “the splendor of my knowledge
and wisdom shines within me. Some of it is an inheritance of the father, my
instructor, my father of wisdoms; and he is my teacher and my master.”6 In the
same section of the poem he goes on to state, in regard to his own knowledge
as related to his Christian contemporaries: “Who shall dare to tell about the
foundation of the beginning?”7 Given such assertions, it is only reasonable to
assume that Isaac Abravanel was influencing Leone in his understandings of
the beginning, an assumption that, with ideational and textual support, can
positively affect an understanding of Leone’s discourse.
Nevertheless, without attribution or clear multipart evidence, such as defini-
tive textual dating and marked linguistic modification, we should be extremely
careful with conjectures concerning sources and influences. Just because two
or more thinkers share similar modes of thought does not mean that they were
necessarily taking from each other. In the case of our four thinkers, for exam-
ple, the fact that they all share an isomorphic understanding of Bereshit as
Hokhmah, or a hylomorphic conception of tohu and bohu, in no way signifies
that such ideas were original to any single one of them. In fact, further analy-
sis reveals common sources utilized by all of them. Furthermore, such com-
monalities alone are in no way proof of any type of cross-­fertilization. Given
their status as elite educated Jews, for example, both Alemanno and Abravanel
could very easily have independently studied BT Hagigah 12a on tohu and
bohu, which then, feasibly very independently, shaped each one’s respective
views on the hylomorphic nature of the beginning.
The problematics of a “sources and influences” approach to understanding
our thinkers in relation to each other can perhaps best be drawn out by e­ xample.
One thought-provoking case in point is the notion that the heavens, as the very
beginning of physical creation, are made up of fire and water. As we have seen,
this idea appears in extensio in the writings of all four of our thinkers. And as we

6  Ebreo, “A Complaint Against the Time,” 221: ‫אב‬-‫ קצתה לי ירשת‬.‫והוד דעי וחכמה נוססה בי‬
.‫ אבי חכמות והוא מרי ורבי‬,‫מאלפי‬
7  Ibid: .‫ומי זה יערב לבו להגיד יסוד ראשית‬
Concluding Remarks 173

have seen, it is based on the linguistic play on the Hebrew word for “heavens,”
i.e., shamayim, as composed of a mutated form of esh, i.e., “fire,” and mayim, i.e.,
“water.” In the case of both Alemanno and Pico, as we have seen, the idea relates
to the sefirot. In the case of both Pico and Abravanel, as we have seen, the idea
possibly relates to an angelic hierarchy. In the cases of Alemanno, Abravanel,
and Leone, as we have seen, there is a non-essential essence to the heavens,
which creates the conditions for corruption but which is not given over to those
conditions. Finally, as we have seen for all four thinkers, the notion of shamayim
as a conjunction of esh and mayim is given over to a decisively hylomorphic
reading of a beginning that is liminally between the non-material and the mate-
rial beginning of creation. Who, then, was influencing whom?
Our four thinkers indeed never directly cite each other concerning
these matters, nor do they mention any commonality of thought with their
­associates. This makes it very difficult to establish any single one of them as
the source for the others. There are also temporal difficulties. For example,
Abravanel’s Genesis commentary and Alemanno’s Einei ha-Edah were both
completed around 1505, Leone’s Dialoghi date to either 1501 or 1511, and Pico’s
Conclusiones and Oration date to 1486 and his Heptaplus to 1489. Are we thus
to conclude that Pico was influencing his three Jewish counterparts in an area
specifically related to Jewish exegesis? In the case of Leone, if we date the
Dialoghi to 1511, it is certainly possible that he was responding to any of his
older contemporaries, including Pico. But given his mention of shamayim in
the context of Greek mythological notions of Strife and Opposition, with nei-
ther a sefirotic nor an angelic explication, such influence seems rather unlikely.
In the case of Abravanel, it is entirely possible that he was influenced by Pico
in his angelic casting of shamayim. But given the lack of clear influence in all
other areas of his writing, coupled with the vastly different Aristotelian cast-
ing of angels in relation to the separate intellects and the spheres rather than
Pseudo-Dionysius’ Celestial Hierarchy, such influence does not seem probable.
In the case of Alemanno, the situation is even more complex. Indeed,
Alemanno lavishes praise upon Pico within his writings, and he explicitly
states an intent to encounter Pico in order to learn from him. In his Shir ha-
Ma’alot l’Shlomo of 1488, which is the introduction to his wider commentary on
the Song of Songs entitled Heshek Shlomo, Alemanno writes: “All my thoughts
led me to come to that lord, master of many sciences that are sublime beyond
the eyes of erudite and famous men of all lands and nations . . . I thought
that perhaps my spirit and soul might be favored by his abundant splendor.”8

8  Lesley, The Song of Solomon’s Ascents, 27. The Hebrew, on page 333 reads: ‫קמו עשתונותי‬
‫במלואותם ומלאו את לבבי לבא בעת ההיא אל האדון אדוני החכמות הרבות והנשגבות מעיני‬
.‫ אולי יחונן רוחי ונשמצי משפע יפעתו‬. . . ‫אנשים חכמים ויודעים בארצותם לגוייהם‬
174 Concluding Remarks

Pico was sought out by Alemanno, and thus, it may be the former’s Conclusiones,
Oration and Heptaplus that influenced the latter’s subsequent Einei ha-Edah.
Maybe, in regard to exegetical matters such as the understanding of shamayim,
Pico’s Kabbalah influenced that of Alemanno.
While this, like the question of Pico’s Jewish influence upon Abravanel
and Leone, is possible, it, too, is highly unlikely. First of all, Pico began his
study of Hebrew sometime between 1485 and 1486, and he was dependent on
others for his Hebrew studies, including Alemanno himself. In fact, Alemanno
goes on in his Shir ha-Ma’alot to state that even though he had initially sought
out Pico, it was the latter who commissioned Alemanno to teach him Hebrew
interpretive strategies due to Pico’s dissatisfaction with Greek and Latin
commentaries. In contradistinction, Alemanno not only wrote in Hebrew and
needed no assistance, he was also highly versed in the midrashic and kabbalis-
tic traditions, and was an erudite master of an unprecedentedly large body of
Hebrew literature. This is the case with Abravanel and Leone as well, and nei-
ther they nor Alemanno would have needed to depend on Pico for such a well-
known Midrash as that concerning the heavenly relationship between fire and
water. This is especially apparent in both Alemanno’s and Abravanel’s direct
quotations from and detailed explications of Babylonian Talmud Hagigah
and Bereshit Rabbah, respectively, as opposed to Pico’s unattributed, terser
accounts of the heavens as made up of fire and water.
Returning to Alemanno and Pico specifically, since the textual evidence for
influence seems more substantial, another possibility is that the two ­thinkers
met prior to the publication of the Conclusiones in 1486. In such a case, even
though Einei ha-Edah had not yet been penned, the ideas may have been
transmitted orally from Alemanno to Pico. Indeed, scholars have pointed out
that live conversation and oral transmission were important components of
Jewish-Christian relations in early modern Italy.9 This was especially the case
in the relationship of exchange between Pico and Alemanno, about which tes-
timony clearly exists, but throughout which Alemanno did not provide any
known text to Pico in Latin or Italian. Eugenio Garin’s claim that the Johanan
mentioned in Pico’s Commento of 1486 was Alemanno would certainly sub-
stantiate the claim of an earlier date of encounter, as would the documen-
tary evidence uncovered by Michele Luzzati that already places Alemanno
in Florence in 1481.10 While an early encounter is thus certainly possible,

9  Idel, Kabbalah in Italy, 191; Black, Pico’s Heptaplus, 19, 24.

10  See Pico, De hominis dignitate, heptaplus, de ente et uno, e scritti vari, a cura di Eugenio
Garin, 535; for an English translation, see: Sears Jayne, Commentary on a Canzone of
Benivieni, 131: “Indeed, the Hebrews, Johanon and Menahem and Jonathan the Chaldaean
say that of all the songs in holy scripture, the Song of Solomon is the most sacred
Concluding Remarks 175

it nevertheless remains unsubstantiated. In fact, Alemanno’s own testimony in

his Shir ha-Ma’alot seems to date 1488 as the first time of contact.
The establishment of “sources and influences” on the horizontal plane is
indeed complicated, and any such type of speculation should be approached
with care. In most of the cases explored throughout this book, commonalities
can be chalked up to a common set of older sources on which the authors
were relying. As we have seen, all four of our authors were reading similar,
and sometimes the same rabbinic and philosophical texts through similar, and
sometimes the same medieval commentary traditions and textual sources. All,
for example, seem to have been influenced by Sefer ha-Bahir and Midrashic
sources filtered through the likes of Recanati, and all were studying biblical
texts interpreted by authorities such as Nahmanides. Though this approach
pointing to common sources is perhaps not as intriguing as the possibility of
cross-fertilization, it is highly important in showing both the intellectual tenor
and the important textual traditions of the time. It also helps us to flesh out
both commonalities and variations in terms of textual readings. In regard to
our case-study concerning the heavens, for example, rabbinic Midrash seems
to stand at the core. As we have mentioned, this core is clearly defined by two
of our thinkers: Alemanno specifically cites Babylonian Talmud Hagigah and
Abravanel explicitly quotes Bereshit Rabbah.
But what about the hypostatic similarities in the readings of Alemanno
and Pico? These do not show up in the rabbinic texts, and unlike the angelic
framings of Pico and Abravanel, which are quite dissimilar under the surface,
Alemanno’s and Pico’s hypostatic understandings are too similar to ignore. In
this case too, however, the influence of one on the other seems to be less plau-
sible than a common older source that was hashing out the rabbinic tradition.
Herein lies the turn to the medieval Hebraic tradition of which all of our think-
ers represent a continuity. In the case of Alemanno and Pico on the hypostatic
nature of the heavens as shamayim, Sefer ha-Bahir and Menahem Recanati
immediately come to mind as common medieval sources. As we have shown,
both of these sources were highly influential upon both Pico and Alemanno,

and the most divine.” Menahem presumably refers to Menahem Recanati, while Jonathan
the Chaldaean refers to the targum of Jonathan ben Uzziel. See also Luzzati, “Documenti
inediti su Yohanan Alemanno a Firenze (1481 e 1492–1494),” in Bemporad and Zatelli,
La cultura ebraica all’epoca di Lorenzo il Magnifico, 71–84. Despite the fact that Pico was
­probably in either Padua or Pavia in 1481, the early date for Alemanno’s arrival leaves open
the possibility for encounter prior to 1486. It should also be noted that both Pico and
Alemanno were both on the move, and could have come into contact in any number of
places in northern Italy.
176 Concluding Remarks

and it is well known that Pico had both translated into Latin for him by Flavius
Mithridates.11 It is also well known that in Sefer ha-Bahir it is written:

What is the meaning of heavens, i.e., shamayim? This teaches that the
Holy One, blessed be He, blended fire, i.e., esh, and water, i.e., mayim. And
He nourished one with the other, and He made from them the beginning
of His words, as it is written: The beginning of Your word is truth [Psalm
119:160]. This is that which is written: sha-mayim, i.e., esh and mayim.
They told him until this point that He makes peace in His high places.
[Job 25:2]. He placed between them peace and brotherhood; may he
place peace and love between us.12

Either from a variant manuscript or from his own musings, the late thirteenth
century Italian exegete and Kabbalist Menahem Recanati explains that this
is actually speaking about hypostatic elements of God Himself: “The inten-
tion is that the attribute of Mercy, i.e., Rahamim, receives from Benevolence,
i.e., Hesed, and from Fortitude, i.e., Gevurah; these are called esh and mayim.”13
Recanati’s hypostatic idea is very much in line with the theosophical readings
of both Alemanno and Pico, as is the idea from the Bahir itself that the heavens
form “the beginning” of God’s words. It thus seems more reasonable, given the
problematics of dates and the lack of citation or distinct textual particulars, to
think that the two Renaissance thinkers were both drawing on these common
sources than to suppose that they were directly influencing each other here.
Such a vertical “sources and influences” type of archeology that detects a
common set of older texts at the heart of discourse should also be approached
with caution; but carefully rendered, it serves some important functions. First,
it gives us a sense of what was being read by elites of the Italian Renaissance
who were interested in questions of the beginning. If all four of our authors
were reading similar rabbinic and kabbalistic sources on cosmic cycles, for
example, and then each was influencing in his own way (Alemanno on Jewish

11  For Pico’s version of the Bahir, see: The Book Bahir: Flavius Mithridates’s Latin Translation,
the Hebrew Text, and an English Version, edited by Saverio Campanini (Turin: Nino Aragno,
2005). The Latin translation of Recanati’s commentary is no longer extant, although a
manuscript fragment of it has recently been found in Genova. For precise reference, see:
Black, Pico’s Heptaplus, 15, and Franco Bacchelli, Giovanni Pico e Pier Leone da Spoleto: tra
filosofia dell’amore e tradizione cabalistica (Florence: L.S. Olschki, 2001), 89–94.
12  Abrams, The Book Bahir, 139–141: ‫ מלמד שגבל הקב"ה אש ומים וטפחן זה בזה‬,‫ומאי שמים‬
‫ אמרו לו‬,‫ אש [ו]מים‬,‫ והינו דכתי שא מים‬,‫ דכתי' ראש דברך אמת‬,‫ועשה מהם ראש לדבריו‬
.‫ ‹נתן ביניכם שלום ואחוה› יתן שלום בינינו ואהבה‬,‫ עושה שלום במרומיו‬,‫עד כאן‬
13  Recanati, Commentary on the Torah, 7: ‫הכוונה היא כי מדת רחמים מקבלת מן החסד ומן‬
.‫הגבורה הנקראים אש ומים‬
Concluding Remarks 177

elites, Pico on the Latin Western tradition, Abravanel on Hebrew exegesis, and
Leone on vernacular literature), then perhaps these sources had more of a stake
in the shaping of Renaissance culture than previously noted. For ­example,
Nahmanides’ senses of Wisdom as related to beginning and of tohu and bohu
as syzygistic hylomorphism, which deeply engaged all four of our thinkers,
cannot be taken for granted in terms of their wider implications. Those who
were both contemporaneously and subsequently reading Alemanno, Pico,
Abravanel, and Leone were exposed to such ideas, and whether knowingly or
not, they were exposed to such sources and hermeneutic methods.
Second, a vertical “sources and influences” type of approach that is properly
carried out gives us a sense of the texts produced by our four thinkers, and
by extension it gives us a sense of texts produced by others as well as what
Edward Said calls “transindividual fields of dispersion.” Said perceptively asks:
“To what extent is a text itself not something passively attributable, as effect
is to cause, to a person? To what extent is a text so discontinuous a series of
subtexts or pre-texts or paratexts or surtexts as to beggar the idea of an author
as simple producer?”14 This type of transindividuality in regard to the text is
quite apparent, for example, in one case in point: the ideas of Proclus from his
Elements of Theology as copied into the anonymous (probably Arabic) Liber
de Causis, quoted in a unique Hebrew translation by the thirteenth century
Spanish Kabbalist Abraham Abulafia, copied from Abulafia by Alemanno, and
then quoted by Abravanel either from Alemanno or in some other ­manner
from the translation in Abulafia’s text. In this complex chain, it is difficult
to locate a single author as the simple producer. Even if one were to point to
Proclus as originator, it would be necessary to take into account the multiple
transformations of the text in both translation and in context. We see in the
case of Alemanno and Abravanel, for example, that even though they were
contemporaries and were utilizing the same text, they are doing very different
things with it. Alemanno is embedding it in a prophetic reading of the sefirot,
while Abravanel is utilizing it to shed light on the idea of God’s Glory as ema-
nated light. By juxtaposing the thought of our four contemporaneous think-
ers, our study has sought to show throughout that indeed, no individual text is
absolute or simple, and no text is truly a unitary document.
The idea of mining older sources not only serves both an historical function
of literary reconstruction and a theoretical function of calling into question
the individual originality of the author; it also plays into the very sensibilities
of the authors at hand. Prisca sapientia, i.e., “ancient wisdom,” the idea that
the place to find true insight and knowledge was in the distant past, was very
popular in late fifteenth century Italy and was highly central to the thought

14  Said, Beginnings, 58.

178 Concluding Remarks

of all four of our thinkers.15 This makes a proper uncovering of older sources
within their thought all the more relevant. Not only does the old inform the
new, in the eyes of our authors, it actually gives it legitimacy. One could thus
argue that an uncovering of older sources is quite essential to understanding
the various projects of the four authors treated here.
One question still remains: Did the conceptualizations of our thinkers con-
cerning “the beginning,” either individually or collectively, mark the “begin-
ning” of new trends of thought? Even though they did not necessarily exhibit
“originality” in its truest sense since, as we have now seen, they were drawing
heavily upon older sources, did our four thinkers nevertheless start something
new in the very real sense of discontinuity and transfer? Given what we have
outlined throughout, it seems that we can indeed detect the very beginning of
new attempts to deal with a greater pluralism of thought. Indeed, as a vigor-
ous campaign to retrieve ancient forms of wisdom of various kinds, including
from the Greek, Egyptian, Chaldean, Indian, and Hebrew cultures, the prisca
sapientia tradition that sought to unify wisdom on the basis of pristine author-
ity brought forth the corollary consequence of a multiplicity of valid heteroge-
neous voices. As Brian Copenhaver and Charles Schmitt have acutely noted of
prisca sapientia, referring to it by the cognate notion of prisca theologia:

Once Pico . . . had established the prisca theologia as a leading motif of

Renaissance conceptions of the past, later thinkers became interested in
the larger implications of the ancient theology, both political and his-
torical. Christian Europe had never been a tolerant society, and for a long
time the religious frenzies sparked by the Reformation made people even
less forgiving of each other’s heterodoxies. In this climate, to have wel-
comed new and alien elements within one’s belief system must count
as a step, however halting or unwitting, toward religious and intellectual
toleration.16

We must indeed be very careful with notions of tolerance in this context since,
as David Ruderman has noted, “Pico was certainly motivated by mission-
ary activity among Jews in his pursuit of Jewish knowledge.”17 Pico’s goal was

15  For more on the prisca sapientia tradition thus characterized, see Brian Copenhaver and
Charles Schmitt, Renaissance Philosophy (Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press,
2002), 136–137. Also see Fabrizio Lelli, “Prisca Philosophia and Docto Religio,” and my
discussion and references in the introduction to this present volume.
16  Copenhaver and Schmitt, Renaissance Philosophy, 84.
17  David Ruderman, Early Modern Jewry: A New Cultural History (Princeton and Oxford:
Princeton University Press, 2010), 112.
Concluding Remarks 179

not to understand in order to embrace with open arms, but to apprehend in

order to subsume and to convert. Notwithstanding, Copenhaver and Schmitt
seem to be correct: Pico was quite unwittingly at the very beginning of ­something
new in his attempt to revive the ancient; but he was not alone. In fact, in terms
of the uses, understandings, transformations and transfer of Jewish textual wis-
dom, all four of the authors treated here were involved in a new beginning that
simultaneously maintained a continuity with the ­authority of the past.
Given the plurality of sources being made available and being given legiti-
macy, part of the challenge for our thinkers was the reconciliation of the uni-
versal with the particular. For all four authors, the particular emerges as an
expression of the universal and the universal can only be known through the
particular. This is similar to the very discourse on the beginning that we have
been discussing, in which the universal, infinite God as Source can only be
made manifest through imperfect, finite particulars that mark the beginning.
Conversely, as we recall, it is only through such finite particulars that one can
come to know and understand the infinite universal.
As we have seen for Alemanno, this paradoxical interplay of the universal
and the particular takes expression in the extreme apophatism of a particularly
Jewish mystical language and symbolism, explicated by more universalistic
philosophical trends. It should be mentioned that in spite of his universalism
and his turn to a plethora of philosophical sources, all of his most important
writings remain in manuscript and were written in a rather baroque Hebrew
style that does not seem to be intended for universal appeal. As we have seen
for Pico, the universal paradoxically takes expression through the concept of
Christ, which by its very nature is particularly Christian. It should be noted in
this regard that even though his project may have had a heterodox effect, his
incorporation of Jewish elements into his thought is often polemic in nature,
and indeed seeks to coerce and to appropriate rather than to tolerate and to
embrace.18 As we have seen for Abravanel, the expression of the universal

18  For more on Pico’s Hebrew polemics, see Ogren, “The Forty-Nine Gates of Wisdom as
Forty-Nine Ways to Christ.” Ruderman states, “For Pico and his associates, the kabbalah
was the key to laying bare the secrets of Judaism, to reconcile them with the mysteries
of other religions and cultures, and thus to universalize them. Through the kabbalah,
the essential differences between Judaism and Christianity could be eradicated” (Early
Modern Jewry, 113). Ruderman is correct, but I would take this statement a step further and
say that for Pico, the differences were to be eradicated through a process of christening. In
an earlier article, Ruderman indeed pushes the idea to a more Christological conclusion,
stating: “By extracting from Jewish culture its vibrant and indispensable sparks of divine
consciousness as manifest in the kabbalah, Pico made Judaism lifeless and ghostly; it had
no rationale to exist in and of itself” (Ruderman, “The Italian Renaissance and Jewish
Thought,” 399).
180 Concluding Remarks

­ articularly relates to Torah and to the assertion of a biblical idea of creation

p
ex nihilo. Even though he transformed certain guarded Jewish mystical
accounts by applying more universal philosophical ideas to them, it should
be noted that he was writing in Hebrew for a Jewish audience and that he
upheld the Torah as the ultimate arbiter of truth. Finally, for Leone, who is
arguably the most “universal” of all the thinkers whom we have treated here,
the confrontation of the universal and the particular takes expression, as we
have seen, in expositions on Renaissance aesthetics and in Greek mythology.
As I have sought to show, however, such expositions often have at their core a
Hebrew textual tradition and a particularly Jewish sense of hermeneutics. In
this case too, then, the particular dialectically rears its head in the face of the
universal.
There is one final, important note concerning the prisca sapientia
­tradition that helped to bring the Hebrew tradition into contact with Italian
Renaissance trends and that is partly responsible for the plurality of voices
leading to a more blatant confrontation between the universal and the par-
ticular. This tradition, i.e., prisca sapientia, actually dovetails quite well with
the projects of our very authors in uncovering the meaning of “the beginning.”
In Hebrew, prisca sapientia is sometimes known as hokhmah kadmonah, and
as we have seen in the thought of our thinkers, “Wisdom,” i.e., Sapientia, is
hypostatically equal to the beginning through a Hebrew paralleling of Reshit
and Hokhmah. By understanding the beginning, then, one can truly come
to understand true Sapientia. Moreover, its adjectival distinction as prisca
(kadmonah), i.e., “ancient,” casts its primordiality as a redeeming characteristic
that governs all discourse concerning it. Though we are perhaps temporally
receding through the whole process of time set in motion by the beginning,
the closer to the origin a source of wisdom is, the better and more perfect it is.
This casts the concept of prisca sapientia in an entirely different light. Indeed,
such a metaphysical understanding that lies at the heart of the thought of our
thinkers makes our focus on treatments of “the beginning” an intricately multi-
layered paradigm for understanding Renaissance uses of older Hebraic sources
of wisdom in uncovering and understanding the true Beginning of Wisdom,
however chaotic and astounding.
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Index
ab eterno creation 159–62, 166–68
Abihu, Rabbi 110
Abraham 40–41
Abravanel, Isaac
background of 10–11
on cosmic cycles and ending of heavens
and earth 148–50
on creation ex nihilo and tohu and
bohu 134–44, 148
on creation of heavens 145–48
on creation of world and first
beginning 1, 2
depicts sefirot as Platonic
Forms 64–65, 91
on emanated light 142–44
on garments of creation 73–76
Genesis commentary 70–73
influence of 2–4, 79, 80–81, 172–76
and interplay of universal and
particular 179–80
invocation of kabbalistic
isomorphism 60
on material elements of existence 171
metaphor of utterances 65–70
parallels with Ebreo 155–56
on Reshit as Hokhmah 60–61
on role of Torah in creation 86
on sefirot and Separate Intellects 61–64
sources of 176–78
study of 4
Abravanel, Judah. See Ebreo, Leone
Abucaten 52–53
Abulafia, Abraham 31–33, 134n, 143, 177
Active Intellect 32
Adam and Eve 164–67
alef 16–17, 42, 45, 47, 48, 49, 50, 51, 171
Alemanno, Isaac 6–7
Alemanno, Yohanan
Abravanel copies from 143
background of 6–8
on Bereshit 25–30
on bet 81
concept of golem 39–41
on distancing through externalization and
revelation of word 37–38
on Elohim 42–43
on emanated speech 66–67
on form and matter 102
influence of 2–4, 70, 172–76
and interplay of universal and
particular 179
interpretation of letter
combinations 41–42
and Jewish tradition 2
on language of Torah 33–34
and Liber de Causis 32–33
on material elements of existence 171
as new Moses 38
parallels with Abravanel on tohu and
bohu 134–35
Pico and 7–8, 10, 43, 44, 117–18
on revelation and creation 91–92
on shmittot and yovelot 107–10, 113–14
sources of 176–78
study of 4
on tohu and bohu 99–106, 110–15, 140
and tohu’s relation to desire 106–7
on Torah of Moses 34–36
understanding of heavens 115–16
amon 72, 86–87
Ancient Holy One 73–74
ancient theologians 89, 90
androgyne 161–68
angels
Abravanel on hierarchy of 147
and Abravanel’s Genesis
commentary 71–72
creation of 60, 62–64, 75–76
apophatism 32–36, 101
Arama, Isaac 72n
Aristophanes 162, 163, 164, 166
Aristotle
and Alemanno’s idea of written
Torah 36
and Ebreo’s Wisdom-Beauty pair 89–90
on Empedocles 47n
influence on Alemanno’s meanings of
Bereshit 26
art/artifice, Wisdom cast as 86–89
ascent, Pico on 46–47
Ashkenazi, Joseph ben Shalom 113, 114
astonishment 103
192
atemporal temporality 170
Ateret Zeqenim (Abravanel) 69
Av 48–49, 51
ayin 100–101, 104, 137
Bahir 42, 121–22, 138–39
bar Hiyya, Abraham 101–2, 138, 154
bar Kahana, Rabbi Abba 146, 147
bar Yohai, Shimon 71, 122
Beauty, Ebreo on Wisdom and 89–95
Becadmin 56
Beginning 169, 170
beginning. See also foundation of the
beginning
and discontinuity and transfer 170–71
head associated with 64
in Hebrew Bible 6
hermeneutical dilemma of 14–15
Pico on 52, 56–59
pondered by Abravanel, Pico, Ebreo, and
Alemanno 1–3
questions regarding 13–14
Renaissance as 5
Said on 15, 169–70
Wisdom as 16
Ben 48–49, 51
Benivieni, Girolamo 54
Bereshit
Abravanel on 60–61
Alemanno on 25–30, 39–40
exegetical background of 16–18
and letter combinations 41–42, 44–46
Pico on 56–57
as Wisdom 81–82
Bereshit Rabbah 72–73, 86–87, 146
bet
Alemanno on 41–42, 81
and Bereshit 16–17
and Christ as Hokhmah 50–51
and Christological implications of
creation 48–49
Ebreo on 81
Pico on 44, 47–48, 81, 129
and trees of Lebanon 130
Binah 29–30, 51, 109–10, 113–14, 124, 126,
128–29, 131, 132, 133
Black, Crofton 56, 121
Boccaccio, Giovanni 153–57, 159
INDEX
body, Abravanel on garments of creation
and 73–75
bohu. See also form
Abravanel on 134–44, 148
Alemanno on 99–106, 114–15
and beginning as discontinuity and
transfer 171
as Binah 114
Ebreo on 151
as form 101–2
hypostatization of 111–13
Pico on 120–24, 131–33
related to initial biblical recounting of
time 110–11
and shmittot and yovelot 107–10
stones of creation as 126
Book of Five Substances (Pseudo-
Empedocles) 37–38, 106
brit milah 58
brit tovah 58
Cassuto, Umberto 25
cedars of Lebanon 128–31
Chaldean language 165–66
Chaos 151–54, 158, 159–60, 161, 167–68
Christ
as Hokhmah 50–51
Pico on 52, 53–54, 56
return to 124–26
as Tiferet 131–32
Collectanea (Alemanno) 113–14
Commentary on Exodus (Abravanel) 142–43
Commento (Pico) 125, 126–27
Conclusiones (Pico) 9–10, 47–48, 120, 127,
173, 174
construction, Alemanno compares creation
to 111–12
Copenhaver, Brian 53n, 119, 168, 178
cosmic isotropy 105
creation ab eterno 159–62, 166–68
creation ex nihilo 136–44, 148, 160–62,
166–68
da Pisa, Yehiel 7, 70
darkness 99, 141–42
de Coeli Harmonia (Ebreo) 12
Delmedigo, Elijah 9
Demogorgon 153–56
Index 193

descent, Pico on 46–47 Enneads (Plotinus) 139

desire 106–7 Eretz ha-Hayyim 55
Dialoghi d’amore (Ebreo) 12–13, 77–78, esh 57, 58, 115, 116, 118, 119, 146, 148, 156–57,
95–96, 173 173, 176. See also fire, heavens as
discontinuity 169–71 composed of
distancing 37–38 eternal return 107, 110, 124–26
divine female 93–95 evil 139, 140–41
divine male 93–95 ex nihilo creation 136–44, 148, 160–62,
divine spirit 152, 167 166–68

Ebreo, Leone Father

on androgyne 161–68 and divine life 55–56
background of 11–13 in Pico’s interpretation of Bereshit 57
explains creation using Greek Feldman, Seymour 62, 136–37, 160n
mythology 153–56 female, divine 93–95
flirtations with non-Jewish feminine-as-loss symbolic order 140
philosophy 78–79 fire, heavens as composed of 119, 120,
and foundation of the beginning 79–81 146–48, 156–57, 172–73. See also esh
on heavens 156–61 First Cause
influence of 2–4, 172–76 Abraham and 41
and instrumentality of Wisdom 82–83 Abulafia on 31
and interplay of universal and Alemanno on 33
particular 180 Elohim and 43
on material elements of existence 171 Light as emanated from 143–44
on matter and creation 151–53 First Mind, ideal being inside 127
on revelation and creation 91–92 Fons Vitae 106
sources of 176–78 form. See also bohu
structure of Dialoghi d’amore 77–78, Alemanno on 102, 111
95–96 bohu as 101–2
study of 4 Ebreo on 151–56
uses Jewish tradition to ponder formation 124, 126
beginning 2 Forms. See Platonic Forms
on Wisdom and Beauty 89–95 foundation 58–59
on Wisdom and intention in foundation of the beginning 79–81
creation 83–84 Francomano, Emily C. 95
on Wisdom as art/artifice 86–89
and Wisdom as Bereshit 81–82 Garb, Jonathan 36–37, 39, 170
on Wisdom as God’s principle in Garden of Eden 129–31
creation 85–86 Garin, Eugenio 174
Eden 129–31 garments of creation 73–76
efes 100–101, 104, 137 gendered creation of universe 161–68
Einei ha-Edah (Alemanno) 26, 27–28, Genealogia deorum gentilium
34–35, 38, 99, 107, 111–12, 117–18, 173, 174 (Boccaccio) 153–57, 159
Ein-Sof. See First Cause generation, natural versus original 154–55
Elements of Theology (Proclus) 177 Genesis
Eliezer, Rabbi 75 Abravanel’s commentary on 70–73
Elohim 42–43, 63 Alemanno on recounting of time in 110
embodiment 103 Ebreo on 152
Empedocles 47 Gersonides 141
194 INDEX

Gevurah 116 hylomorphism 101, 102, 106, 119–20, 138–40,

Gluck, Andrew 92n, 160n
golem 39–41, 105
grave 49
Greek mythology 153–56
green line circling universe 111–12, 132–33,
141
Guidi, Angela 77, 92n
Hagigah 111, 113–14, 141
havaya 69
Hay ha-‘Olamim (Alemanno) 99
heads, associated with beginnings 64.
See also rosh
heavens
Abravanel on creation of 145–48
Abravanel on ending of 148–50
Alemanno’s understanding of 115–16
distance from Source 37
Ebreo on 156–61
Pico’s idea of 117, 118–20
and sources and influence approach to
understanding thinkers 172–73,
175–76
Hebrew alphabet 48, 49
Hebrew Bible 5–6, 15
Hebrew scholars 120–22
Hegayon ha-Nefesh (bar Hiyya) 101–2
Heidegger, Martin 15
Heptaplus (Pico) 10, 52, 53, 117–18, 173,
174
Heschel, Abraham Joshua 170
Hesed 116
Hokhmah
Alemanno on 27–30, 42, 43
as beginning of speech 53
Christ as 50–51
Nahmanides on 17
Pico on 54–55
Reshit as 50, 52, 60, 86
sefirah of 64
Torah as 73–75
and trees of Lebanon 130–31
written word and spoken word in 68
Hughes, Aaron 79n
humanity, as simulacrum of universe 162,
166
142, 147, 164
hypostatic conflation 51
ibn Ezra, Abraham 136
ibn Gabirol, Solomon 106
ibn Paquda, Bahya 36
Ibn Tufayl, Abubacher 61–62
ibn Waqar, Joseph ben Abraham 132
ideal order 126–29
Ideas. See Platonic Forms
Idel, Moshe
on Abravanel copying from
Alemanno 143
on Abulafia and Active Intellect 32n
on Abulafia and language 32
Alemanno’s portrayal of Abraham’s
enlightenment 41
on androgyne 165
on Neoplatonic concepts in Einei
ha-Edah 107
on Pico and Alemanno referencing each
other 3n
on Pico and Proclus’s concepts of
processio, reversio, and reunio 46
on Renaissance 13
on Scholem’s notion of mystical
symbolism 104, 105
Imrei Shefer (Abulafia) 31
inanis/inane 151–52
incarnational theology 72n
incarnational thinking 40n, 53n
influence, originality and 169–72
intellection 84–85, 90
isomorphism 16, 18, 19, 60, 86
Jewish tradition 158–59
Kabbalah
and Abravanel’s Genesis commentary 70
Abulafia on 31–32
kabbalistic isomorphism 60
Keter 42, 43, 53, 73–74
Keter Elyon 50, 51
kever 49
Klausner, Joseph 77
Kodera, Sergius 94
Index 195

lack Mother, and divine life 55–56

Abravanel’s feminized notion of 140 multiplicity, sefirot and Separate Intellects
creation from 137 as 61–62
Pico on 132 mystical symbolism 104–6
lamed-bet netivot 42, 43
language Nahalat Avot 70
Abravanel on dual creative nature of Nahmanides 17, 60–61, 62–64, 80–81, 100,
divine 68–69 121, 122, 136, 137, 138–40
and Abravanel’s Genesis commentary 71 Narboni, Moses 62
Abulafia on 32 natural generation 154–55
and Alemanno’s view of tohu 104–5 natural order 127–29
language mysticism 49–50 Neoplatonism 1–2n
letter combinations 41–42, 44–50 non-Jewish philosophy, Ebreo’s flirtation
letters of Tetragrammaton 69–70 with 78–79
Liber de Causis 31–33, 36, 53n nous 89
light, emanated 142–44 nun 48, 49, 51
logos theology 72n
lo-mi-davar 137–38, 148 oman 72, 86–87
love, Ebreo on 94 Onkelos the Chaldean 56
Luzzati, Michele 174 Opposition 156
Oration (Pico) 119, 173, 174
ma’aseh merkavah 80 Origen 121n
Magid, Shaul 40n, 53n, 67, 72n, 110, 149–50n original generation 154–55
Maimonides 32, 36 originality 169–72, 178
male, divine 93–95
Malkhut 116, 124, 126, 128–29, 131, 133 Pan 153–54
Matt, Daniel 72 paradise 131
matter. See also Chaos; tohu Pardes 144
Alemanno on 102, 106 particular, reconciliation of universal
Ebreo on 151–56 and 179–80
Plotinus on 139 peace 140
tohu as 101–2 Perry, T. Anthony 95
mayim 111, 115, 116, 118, 119, 146, 148, 156–57, per sapienzia 83
173, 176. See also water, heavens as personification 85n, 95
composed of Pessin, Sarah 106, 140
mem 45, 47, 48 Pico della Mirandola Giovanni
menuhah 107 Alemanno and 7–8, 10, 117–18
Mercer, Christia 1n background of 8–10
merkavah 33 on beginning 52, 56–59
Merleau-Ponty, Maurice 103 on Bereshit 56–57
Messer Leon, Judah 7 on bet 81
Messiah 51–52 on Christ 50–51, 53–54
microtheos 40 on felicity and first beginning 1, 2
microtheosis 40–41 on foundation 58–59
Mif’alot Elohim (Abravanel) 75, 80 on Garden of Eden 29–31
mi-lo 137–38, 148 on heavens 118–20
Mithridates 55 on Hokhmah 54–55
Moses, Alemanno as new 38 on ideal and natural orders 126–29
196 INDEX

Pico della Mirandola Giovanni (cont.) Renaissance

influence of 2–4, 70, 172–76 Idel on 13
and interplay of universal and as new beginning 5
particular 179 repose 107
interpretation of letter Reshit 16–17, 26–28, 50, 52, 60, 86
combinations 44–50 rest 107
on life 55–56 Return 130
on material elements of existence 171 return to Christ 124–26
on Messiah 51–52 reunio 46–48, 85
parallels with Abravanel on tohu and revelation 37, 91–92
bohu 134–36 reversio 46–48, 85, 107
sources of 176–79 rosh 57–58, 64
on speech 52–54 Ruderman, David 5, 178, 179n
study of 4–5
on Teshuvah 124–26 Sabbath 107, 113
on three worlds imagined by Said, Edward 15, 169–70, 177
antiquity 63n Sallis, John 14
on tohu and bohu 120–24, 131–33 saying, Alemanno on 28–29
Pines, Shlomo 93n Schmitt, Charles 178
Pirkei Avot 29n, 65–66, 67, 68, 70 Scholem, Gershom 101, 104
Pirkei d’Rabbi Eliezer 75 Sefer ha-Bahir 99, 175–76
plagiarism 134n Sefer Yetzirah 137–38
Plato 143, 157, 160 sefirot
Platonic Forms Abravanel on 61–64, 68–69, 76, 144–45
as Art 87 Alemanno on 33–34, 108
Ebreo on Chaos and 153 depicted as Platonic Forms 64–65, 91
and Ebreo’s theory of art and creation of garment of creation as 75
simulacrum 91–92 ideal being inside First Mind takes
in Hokhmah 55 expression in 127
juxtaposed with plants through garden and metaphor of utterances 65–70
medium 130 Pico on theological truth of 118
sefirot depicted as 64–65, 144–45 semiosis 38–39
Platonists 53–54 Separate Intellects 61–64, 75–76, 146–47
Plotinus 141, 142 separation, in process of creation 141
Poliziano, Angelo 9 Septuagint 120–21, 123, 135–36
Porphyry 133 Sha’ar ha-Shamayim 45–46, 55
prisca sapientia tradition 5, 9, 54, 90n, Shabbat 48–49, 51
177–80 shalom 140
processio 46–48, 84–85, 107 shamayim 115, 116, 119, 146–47, 156–57, 173,
Proclus 46–48, 177 175–76
Proverbs 85 shet 57, 58
Pseudo-Empedocles 37–38 Shir ha-Ma’alot l’Shlomo (Alemanno) 173–75
shmittot 107–10, 113–14, 124, 150, 157–58
Queen of Sheba 77, 78 sippur 33–34
Skalli, Cedric Cohen 70
reason 158–59 Solomon, King 77, 78, 79, 85, 93
Recanati, Menahem 30, 48–50, 122, 128, Son
175–76 as Hokhmah 50–51
Index 197

in Pico’s interpretation of Bereshit 57 as creator 71–73

speech distance from Source 37
and Abravanel’s metaphor of as Hokhmah 73–75
utterances 65–70 speech of creation contained in 67–68
Alemanno on 28–29 Torah of Moses 34–36
inner and outer 37–38 tradition 158–59
Pico on 52–54 transfer, discontinuity and 170–71
Wolfson on 38–39 transindividual fields of dispersion 177
writing as simulacrum of 36 trees of Lebanon 128–31
spirit of God 99, 152 Truth 44–46
spoken word 68
stones of creation 111–14, 126, 144 Understanding 130
Strife 153, 156 unity, sefirot and Separate Intellects
symbol, tohu as 104–6 as 61–62
universal, reconciliation of particular
Targum Onkelos 136 and 179–80
Targum Yerushalmi 16–17 utterances 65–70
tav 41, 45, 51, 57n
tav hu 104, 106 vacua 151–52
tehom 141–42, 144 Vila-Chã, João 83–84, 92–93n, 160
Telunah al ha-Zeman [“A Complaint against Vulgate 120–21, 123, 135–36, 151
the Time”] (Ebreo) 78–79, 172
Teshuvah 124–25, 132 water, heavens as composed of 111–12, 115,
Tetragrammaton 69–70 119–20, 142, 146–48, 156–57, 172–73. See
Tiferet 92–93, 131–32 also mayim
time Wirszubski, Chaim 46, 48–49, 118, 123, 128,
biblical recounting of 110 132
cycles of 107–10, 124–26, 148–50 Wisdom
Tirosh-Samuelson, Hava 4 as art/artifice 86–89
tohu as beginning 16
Abravanel on 134–44, 148, 150 Bereshit as 81–82
Alemanno on 99–106, 114–15, 140 conflation of Son and Hokhmah through
and beginning as discontinuity and notion of 51
transfer 171 Ebreo on Beauty and 89–95
as Binah 114 Ebreo on intellections and 84–85
Ebreo on 151 in Ebreo’s Telunah al ha-Zeman 78–79
hypostatization of 111–13 Ebreo’s understanding of beginning in
as matter 101–2 relation to 77–78
Pico on 120–24, 131–33 of foundation of the beginning 79–81
as related to desire 106–7 instrumentality of 82–83
related to initial biblical recounting of and intention in creation 83–84
time 110–11 as principle of creation 85–86
and shmittot and yovelot 107–10 and uttered word and written word 68
Torah Wolfson, Elliot
Abravanel on, in creation 86 on Abulafia and Active Intellect 32
Abulafia on language of 32 on alef versus bet 17
Alemanno on 25 on androgyne 167
Alemanno on language of 33–35 on Bahir 42
198 INDEX

Wolfson, Elliot (cont.) Yavneh, Naomi 163–64

on cosmic isotropy 105
on efes and ayin 100–101
on embodiment 103
on hermeneutical dilemma of
beginning 14
on speech and semiosis 38–39
on tohu 104
writing, as simulacrum of speech 36
written word 68
Yedidya 77
Yesod 58
yovelot 107–10, 113–14, 124, 150, 158
Zevah Pesah (Abravanel) 155
Zohar 28–30, 53, 71–74, 122–24, 126, 128–29,
165–66