kabbalah Gershom scholem

HISTORICAL DEVELOPMENT 29
the 11th century poems were even composed on the doctrines of Sefer Ye?irah,
e.g., by Ibn Gabirol 16 and by ?:ahallal b. Nethanel Caon. 1 7
A great many commentaries on Sefer Ye?irah were written within the circles
of the f:lasidei Ashkenaz, among them that of Eleazar b. Judah of Worms which
was published in its entirety in Przemysl in 1889, and one later attributed to
Saadiah Gaon (from the beginning of the 13th century), of which only a part is
printed in the usual editions; also noteworthy is the commentary by Elhanan b.
Ya:kar of London (c. 1240), edited by G. Vajda (in Kove? a! Yad, 6 (1966),
145-97). The number of commentaries written in the spirit of the Kabbalah and
according to the kabbalists' conception of the doctrine of the Sefirot comes
close to fifty. The earliest of these, by Isaac the Blind, is also one of the most
difficult and important documents from the beginnings ofKabbalah (see below,
p.42.) The commentary of Isaac's pupil Ariel b. Menahem of Gerona appears in
the printed editions as the work of Na!Jmanides. The actual commentary by
NaJ:unanides (only on the first chapter) was published by G. Scholem. 18 Almost
the entire commentary by Abraham Abulafia (Munich Ms. 58) is contained in
the Sefer ha-Peli'ah (Korets, 1784, fols. 50-56). This kabbalist, in one of his
works, enumerates 12 commentaries which he studied in Spain (Jellinek, Beit
ha-Midrash. 3 (1855), 42). From the 14th century come the comprehensive
commentary by Joseph b. Shalom Ashkenazi, written in Spain and erroneously
attributed in printed editions to R. Abraham b. David ; 19 the commentary by
Meir b. Solomon ibn Sahula of 1331 (Rome, Angelica library, Ms. Or. 45); as
well as the Meshovev Netivot (Ms. Oxford) by Samuel ibn Motot. Around 1405
Moses Botarel wrote a commentary citing a considerable number of false quotations
from his predecessors. A number of commentaries were composed in
Safed, among them one by Moses b. Jacob Cordovero (Ms. Jerusalem) and by
Solomon Toriel (Ms. Jerusalem). From then on commentaries in the spirit of
Isaac Luria proliferated; for example, by Samuel b. Elisha Portaleone (Ms. Jews'
College, London), by David f:labillo (Ms. of the late Warsaw community); from
among these the commentary by Elijah b. Solomon, the Gaon of Vilna (1874),
and the book Otot u-Mo 'adim by Joshua Eisenbach of Prystik (Pol. Przystyk,
1903) were printed.
PRINTED EDITIONS AND TRANSLATIONS
Sefer Yqirah was first printed in Mantua in 1562 with the addition of several
commentaries, and has since been reprinted a great many times, with and with·
out commentaries. In the Warsaw 1884 edition - the most popular one - the
text of some commentaries is given in a considerably distorted form. Sefer
Ye?irah was translated into Latin by the Christian mystic G. Postel and printed