General

Title

Jerusalem (Israel), The National Library of Israel: Ms. Heb. 9792=4

Manuscript name

Classical Ilan

Summary

This seventeenth-century Italian copy of a classical ilan that goes back to the fourteenth century demonstrates the ongoing relevance of such artifacts even in an era typically presumed to have been dominated by the Lurianic Kabbalah. It preserves the core content associated with the genre from its inception: names and appellations associated with each of the ten sefirot inscribed in the medallions, networking principles inscribed in or adjacent to the channels that connect the sefirot. Ein Sof is represented as a medallion above the arboreal figure, its bottom half blackened to signify its impenetrability to human thought.

Support material

paper

Main language

Rabbinic Hebrew

Identifier

Ms. Heb. 9792=4

NLI identifier

990033789540205171

Repository

The National Library of Israel

Country

Israel

Settlement

Jerusalem

Colophon

"נשלם בע"ה יום ה' י"ד ימים לחדש שבט שנת הקטין י'ה'ו'ד'ה' ל'י'ב' ב'ן' א'ש'ר' א'נשי'ל כ"ץ [תרל"ו]" The scribe wrote his father's name three times and erased two of them.

Research literature

J. H. Chajes, The Kabbalistic Tree (University Park, PA: Penn State University Press, 2022), 2-3, 372.

Creation time

Date

17th-century