Tikvah
Editors’ Pick

April 8, 2019

The Mysteries of a Founding Text of Jewish Mysticism

Nestorian Christians and Sefer Y’tsirah.

Sefer Y’tsirah (“The Book of Creation”) is one of the oldest works of Jewish mysticism, the first to introduce the doctrine of the ten emanations (in Hebrew, sfirot) of the godhead, and a major influence on all later kabbalistic works. Tradition attributes it to the biblical Abraham, and a book with the same title is mentioned in the Talmud. But among academic scholars there is no consensus about its authorship, except that it was composed no later than the 9th century CE. Reviewing a new book by Tzahi Weiss about Sefer Y’tsirah’s origins, Shai Secunda writes:

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