By April 13, 2008 Read More →

Eleazar of Worms, cited in ‘Arugat ha-Bosem, 1:137

Jewish Mysticism
He manifest the form of a human face to the mind of the prophet who saw according to the number (or measure) [implied in] “[Great is our Lord] and full of power” (we-rav koah)… According to the vision [that one beholds] one knows His will and one knows the supernal Mind… What image can you apply to him? Rather [it is written] “and through the prophets I was imagined” (Hosea 12-11). He sees in his mind… according to the image (dimyon) that appears to the prophet he knows the [divine] decree… But there are no faces above… when it says the “face of the Shekhinah” [it means] as it appears to the mind of the prophets, for the Creator of all has no face. He appears in the image of an elder or in the image of a youth.

Translated by Elliot Wolfson in Through a Speculum that Shines- Vision and Imagination in Medieval Jewish Mysticism, Princeton- Princeton University Press, 1994.

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