General

Title

Jerusalem, The National Library of Israel: Ms. Heb. 9790=4

Manuscript name

Coppio's "two-column" ilan

Summary

This rotulus is a (non-autograph) copy of Coppio's ilan and opens with the phrase “Said the compiler […] of blessed memory.” Like its source, it is a variation of Great Tree type VPaZW, featuring distinctive changes and additions. The rotulus is divided into two columns. A text column, roughly a third of the rotulus's width, runs alongside the diagrammatic presentation--as if it were a commentary--but does not reference it. A diagram that merges two classical sefirotic diagrams is the opening figure of the rotulus. In this appropriation, the figure represents primordial stages of emanation that precede the World of Aẓilut. This representation was borrowed from Moshe Graf's Va-yakhel Moshe (Moses assembled, Dessau, 1699). The Lurianic “kav ha-Ein Sof” (line of Ein Sof) traverses the rotulus at its center, passing through the various components of the ilan, graphically suggesting that all worlds enrobe the light of Ein Sof.

Support material

parchment

Main language

Rabbinic Hebrew

Hand description

Square, Sephardic Semi-cursive

Identifier

Ms. Heb. 9790=4

NLI identifier

990000559580205171

Repository

The National Library of Israel

Country

Israel

Settlement

Jerusalem

Research literature

J. H. Chajes, The Kabbalistic Tree: Ha-Ilan ha-Kabalai (Pennsylvania: 2022), pages 261–264, 295–296, 354, 356, 395. Moshe Hillel, Oveh la-Sokher, R. Yitshak b. R. Mikhael Kupio: Between Me'arat Sedeh ha-Makhpelah and Arba Me'ot Shekel Kasef (Jerusalem: 2016), page 99.

Creation time

Date

19th century