Schlomo Alkabez

Alkabez 'tomb in Safed

Schlomo ben Moses ha-Levi Alkabez (born 1505 in Saloniki ; died 1576 in Safed ) was a Kabbalist and mystical poet. He is the author of the Shabbath hymn Lecha Dodi .

Life

Alkabez spent his youth in different cities of the Ottoman Empire . In Adrianople he was asked by a group of Kabbalistic ascetics to be initiated into the spiritual life and into its ways of honoring God. In Nikopol he probably met Josef Karo , who valued his knowledge of Kabbalah. Alkabez arrived in Safed probably in 1535. Very little is known about his life there; nothing is known about his attitude towards Isaac Luria . It appears that he was the head of the yeshiva of Meron , where Shimon ben Jochai is buried, and it is fairly certain that he was the rabbi in Safed. He wrote commentaries on various biblical books as well as some Kabbalistic works. After his death, numerous of his manuscripts were stolen, although it is unclear whether this happened during persecutions or by other authors. His purely Kabbalistic works have not been printed or preserved as manuscripts, but a collection of his prayers has been preserved.

To understand the secrets of the Zohar , Alkabez prayed and meditated with his students at the tombs of the righteous . This practice was called Geruschin ('expulsion'), whereby the gathering of the meditative powers occurred spontaneously and without any preparation. Alkabez's most famous student was Moses Cordovero , who married Alkabez's sister. But it seems that in the course of time the teacher himself became a student. This follows from the introduction to the wisdom of Kabbalah by Alkabez, the structure and content of which corresponds to Cordovero's first important book, Pardes Rimonim .

Alkabez probably introduced the custom adopted by the Safeder Kabbalists of greeting Shabbat in the fields in front of the city with a recital of his hymns. His song Lecha Dodi has achieved unprecedented fame and is still sung today in Jewish communities around the world as part of the Friday evening service.

Works

• Shoresh Yishai. Jerusalem 1978.
• Ayelet ahavim. Ofer ha-ayalim, Jerusalem 2000.
• Be'ure Menot ha-Leṿi. Lakewood, NJ 2006.
• Hagadah shel Pesaḥ. Even berit, Jerusalem 1969.
• Sefer Berit ha-Levi. Jerusalem 1969.
• Lekhah dodi. Yesod ʻolam, Jerusalem 2002.

literature

• ALKABEẒ, SOLOMON BEN MOSES HA-LEVI:  Alkabez, Schlomo. In: Encyclopaedia Judaica . 2nd Edition. Volume 1, Detroit / New York a. a. 2007, ISBN 978-0-02-865929-9 , pp. 662-663 (English).
• Simon Bernstein: Reb Shelomoh Alḳabets der shafer fun der Yidisher Marselyeze , New York 1958.
• HG Enelow:  ALḳABIẒ, SOLOMON BEN MOSES HA-LEVI. In: Isidore Singer (Ed.): Jewish Encyclopedia . Funk and Wagnalls, New York 1901-1906.
• Bracha Sack: The Secret Teaching of R. Shlomo Halevi Alkabetz , Ph. D. Brandeis University 1977.
• Joseph Yahalom: Hebrew mystical poetry and its Turkish background , in: Andreas Tietze, Joseph Yahalom (ed.): Ottoman Melodies Hebrew Hymns . A 16th century cross-cultural adventure, Akadémiai Kiadó, Budapest 1995, 9-43.

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Karl Erich Grözinger: Jewish thinking / theology, philosophy, mysticism, Volume I, From the God of Abraham to the God of Aristotle, Campus Verlag GmbH, Frankfurt a. M., 2004, p. 302.