Fathoming the heights, ascending the depths: Decoding the dogma within the enigma. The life, works and speculative piety of Rabbi Moses Cordoeiro (Safed 1522--1570).

Abstract

This dissertation addresses the reciprocal relations between rational speculation and devotional piety in the life and thought of Rabbi Moses Cordoeiro (= Cordovero - RaMaK, Safed, 1522-1570), arguably the most important mystical thinker in Jewish history. By featuring numerous parts from his writings in their first annotated English translation, this work is both the first extensive English study on RaMaK and an entry to his nuanced and often ingenious manipulations of the Hebrew language. The first chapter charts RaMaK's biography, illuminating certain aspects and correcting some erroneous data still prevalent in modern scholarship. These are addressed within the broader historical and phenomenological contexts which had shaped RaMaK's world: the post-Expulsion generation, the peak of Ottoman hegemony in the Near Eastern and Balkan spheres and the currents of European Renaissance, which allowed demographic mobility and a splendidly multihued correspondence between a variety of theoretical and practical schools. The second chapter examines the biographies of RaMaK's wife and son. Looking at their roles in RaMaK's piety and the later dissemination of his writings, it further clarifies the important standing of women in the Safedian society and investigates the evolution of RaMaK's Kabbalah in relation to its Lurianic counterpart. The third chapter charts RaMaK's unrivaled literary output while examining central elements in his systematic speculation, thematic organization and hermeneutical approach. It also corrects certain scholarly errors regarding the order, chronology and quantity of RaMaK's writings, as well as looking into certain unpublished sections from his texts. The fourth chapter addresses RaMaK's composition <italic>Sefer Gerushin</italic> - a seminal and unstudied work to date. It demonstrates the complex relations between texts, language, landscape, body, soul and devotion in RaMaK's evolving system, and offers a close analysis of the ways in which mental properties and practical performance are integrated in his overall Kabbalah en route to epistemic clarity and theurgic efficacy. The fifth chapter examines RaMaK's theoretical skeleton and follows the hurdles in interweaving Aristotelian metaphysics, Neoplatonic doctrines and Zoharic theosophy. Here I introduce RaMaK's <italic>metatheosophical paradigm </italic> and demonstrate his view of the <bold>10</bold> Sefirot as the necessary theosophical manifestation of the metaphysical relationship between potentiality and actuality (10 = 1 = 0).