By April 10, 2008 Read More →

Ezra ben Solomon of Gerona, 13th century, Kitve Ramban 2:521

Jewish Mysticism
“I the Lord am your God,” for knowledge is the foundation and root of everything. Concerning this the rabbis, blessed be their memory, said, “Whoever has knowledge it is as if the Temple were built in his life.” The meaning of this is that such a person knows how to unify the Unique Name [shem ha-meyuhad, the Tetragrammaton] and it is as if he builds the palace above and below… If there is no knowledge no worship is possible, whether the worship of sacrifices or that of prayer… The Pious one [i.e., R. Isaac the Blind] said to his disciples, when you pray know before whom you stand, thus it says, “Know the God of your father, and serve Him” (1 Chron. 28-9), after the knowledge the labor of service should be in his bosom. “Who brought you out of the land of Egypt,” there is an allusion here to the fact that every person is obligated to unify His name, for that redemption was not by means of an intermediary, an angel or a seraph, but rather the Holy One, blessed be He, in His essence and glory went forth. Therefore a person must know how to unify the name, He is one and not two… and he must unify Him in the ten sefirot in the Infinite.

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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