Abraham ben Eliezer ha-Levi

Abraham ben Eliezer ha-Levi , also called Ha-Zaken (* around 1460 in Spain , † around 1529 in Palestine ), was a Spanish Kabbalist and messianic visionary.

Life

Abraham ben Eliezer ha-Levi was born in Spain between 1460 and 1470. He comes from a respected family of scholars and was related by marriage to the astronomer and historian Abraham Zacuto . He probably studied in Toledo under Isaac Gakon. He wrote several Kabbalistic treatises of which he finished Masoret ha-Hokhmah ( Tradition of Wisdom ), a brief exposition of Spanish Kabbalism, shortly before 1492. After the expulsion of the Jews from Spain in 1492, he probably emigrated via Portugal and Italy to Serres (Greece) , where he wrote the book Meshare Qitrin ( The Looser of the Knot ), a Kabbalistic commentary on the Book of Daniel . The work was printed in Constantinople in 1510 as one of the first Hebrew books. Around 1514 he went to Palestine via Egypt , where he met the Jewish scholar Isaac ha-Kohen Sholal. He settled in Jerusalem and became a respected teacher at one of the two yeshivot . While he was still alive, he became famous for his letters on religious questions, which he sent to various Jewish communities in Europe. A last letter is from 1528. Presumably he died a short time later.

Messianism

For Abraham Halevi, the expulsion of the Jews from Spain was a traumatic experience. Like Abraham Zacuto and Isaac Abrabanel , he saw it as a sign that the return of the Messiah had begun. He saw a further sign of the beginning of the end times in the conquest of Constantinople by the Ottomans in 1453. In his time in Jerusalem he mainly dealt with the messianic question and tried with the help of the Talmud and the Bible to determine the exact time of the return of the Calculate Messiah. Based on the Book of Daniel, he calculated the return of the Messiah to be in 1530. According to further calculations, the restoration of the Jerusalem temple should be completed by 1540 . The resurrection of the dead was to take place in 1575.

He published his speculations in several writings: Ma'amar Perek Helek (Presentation of Messianic Teaching in the Talmud), Nevuat ha-Yeled ( The Prophecy of the Child ) and Iggeret Sod ha-Ge'ullah ( The Letter on the Mystery of Redemption ). He saw some of his prophecies confirmed during his lifetime. So he interpreted the appearance of the Messiah pretender David Reubeni and the reformer Martin Luther (beginning of the destruction of Christianity) as well as the threat to Christian Europe by the Turks as a sign of the impending end times. In his letters he called for the secrecy of his messianic knowledge and warned against opposing the coming events. In preparation for the end times, he called for penance and prayer. Abraham Halevi probably died before 1530 and could no longer live to see his predictions not being fulfilled.

literature

• Moshe Idel : Messianic Mystics. University Press, New Haven 1998, ISBN 0-300-06840-9 .
• Ira Robinson: Abraham ben Eliezer Halevi. Kabbalist and Messianic Visionary of the early sixteenth century. (Dissertation) Cambridge 1980
• Anselm Schubert: Anabaptism and Kabbalah. Augustin Bader and the Limits of the Radical Reformation (Sources and research on the history of the Reformation; Vol. 81). Gütersloher Verlagshaus, Gütersloh 2008, pp. 80–85, ISBN 978-3-579-05372-1 .
• Gershom Scholem : Jewish mysticism in its main currents. Suhrkamp, ​​Frankfurt / M. 1980, ISBN 3-518-07930-1 (reprint of the Frankfurt / M.1957 edition).
• Abba Hillel Silver: History of Messianic Speculation in Israel. Kessinger Publ., Whitefish, Mont. 2003, ISBN 978-0-7661-3514-7 (reprinted from the Boston 1927 edition).
• Gershom Scholem, Moshe Idel:  ABRAHAM BEN ELIEZER HA-LEVI. In: Encyclopaedia Judaica . 2nd Edition. Volume 1, Detroit / New York a. a. 2007, ISBN 978-0-02-865929-9 , pp. 298-299 (English).

Web links

• Joseph Loeb Sossnitz:  ABRAHAM HA-LEVI BEN ELIEZER HA-ZAḲEN. In: Isidore Singer (Ed.): Jewish Encyclopedia . Funk and Wagnalls, New York 1901-1906.

Individual evidence

1. ↑ ^{a b} Scholem (EJ2)
2. ↑ See Schubert (2008), pp. 81–83.
3. ↑ See Ira Robinson: Messianic Prayer Vigils in Jerusalem in the Early Sixteenth Century. In: The Jewish Quarterly Review , Vol. 72 (1981), Issue 1, pp. 32-42, ISSN  0021-6682 .