Bidspirit auction | MOSES BEN SHEM TOV DE

MOSES BEN SHEM TOV DE LEON. - HaNephesh HaChochmah [Kabbalistic discourses on the fate awaiting the soul after death and the mystical significance of the precepts]. Also includes commentaries by R. Moses de Leon and R. Joseph Gikatilla to the Passover Hagadah. FIRST EDITION. Title within typographical border. Signatures on title including Izaak b. Elozor-Lazi Berlin. ff. (64). Wormed and stained. Later vellum-backed boards, Valmadonna-custom gilt title on spine. 4to. Vinograd, Basle 231. Basle: Konrad Waldkirch 1608 Moses de Leon of Guadalajara (c. 1240-1305) was one of the greatest Spanish kabbalists of his day, indeed scholars have attributed to him - rather than to Rabbi Shimon bar Yochai, the putative author - the composition of the Zohar. Painstaking comparisons have been made of de Leon’s other works, such as our HaNephesh HaChochmah, to ascertain whether there is overlap with the Zohar in terms of style, language and terminology, as well as to determine whether the two Kabbalistic systems are divergent or not. See G. Scholem, Major Trends in Jewish Mysticism (1967) pp. 159-204 and EJ, Vol. XII cols. 425-6.