By October 30, 2016 Read More →

Eleazar of Worms, Sha‘ar ha-Sod ha-Yihud we-ha-’Emunah pp. 147-148.

 

wormsThe Creator has no body, physical stature, image or form at all… The glory is an appearance of the resplendent light, which is called Shekhinah, and the will of the Creator shows and images that very light to the prophets according to the hour, to this one like that [form] and to the other like that… From the resplendent light He created His glory… the appearance of the vision is in the heart of the one who sees… The Creator is one and makes the glory appear according to His will… the appearance of His splendor, which is His glory, is like a consuming fire, and they called it Shekhinah… according to the will of the Creator is the appearance of His glory. Moses saw the splendor of the glory, the great resplendence, more than all the prophets. Within the vision are images (dimyonot), [as it is written] “and through the prophets I was imagined” (Hosea 12-11)… the appearance of the images is according to the desire of His decrees, sometimes in the image of an anthropos and sometimes in another image, in accordance with His will He shows [the prophet] His glory in the place that He wills.

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

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