RT Article
T1 A Printed Primer of Kabbalistic Knowledge: Sha‘arei Orah in East-Central Europe
JF European journal of jewish studies
VO 16
IS 1
SP 169
OP 196
A1 Stillman, Avinoam J.
LA English
PB Brill
YR 2022
UL https://www.ixtheo.de/Record/1789483409
AB This article explores the printed editions of Joseph Gikatilla’s Sha‘arei Orah in the broader context of kabbalistic knowledge in early modern East-Central Europe. Following its first Italian editions, the book was reprinted several times. The Kraków 1600 edition with commentary by Matityah Delacrut presented Sha‘arei Orah as a kabbalistic lexicon and study aid. The Offenbach 1715 edition included additional notes that linked Sha‘arei Orah to the Safedian Kabbalah of Moses Cordovero and Isaac Luria. Finally, the several editions published in Żółkiew exemplify the diversification of Kabbalah in the contentious religious climate of eighteenth-century Eastern Europe. Each printing reflects a discrete historical context, yet Sha‘arei Orah was consistently seen as an introductory guide to Kabbalah. Threading together these unique moments reveals one trajectory of the history of Kabbalah, as printing brought esoteric texts to new generations of readers with new concerns and agendas.
K1 early modern Jewish intellectual history
K1 East-Central Europe
K1 history of the book
K1 history of knowledge
K1 Kabbalah
DO 10.1163/1872471X-bja10029