Abraham ben Samuel Abulafia (Hebrew: אברהם בן שמואל אבולעפיה) was the founder of the school of "Prophetic Kabbalah". He was born in Zaragoza, Kingdom of Aragon, in 1240, and is assumed to have died sometime after 1291 following a stay on the island of Comino in the Maltese archipelago.
>>>PUT SHARE BUTTONS HERE<<<
👉 Abraham Abulafia in the context of Jewish meditation
Jewish meditation includes practices of settling the mind, introspection, visualization, emotional insight, contemplation of divine names, or concentration on philosophical, ethical or mystical ideas. Meditation may accompany unstructured, personal Jewish prayer, may be part of structured Jewish services, or may be separate from prayer practices. Jewish mystics have viewed meditation as leading to devekut (cleaving to God). Hebrew terms for meditation include hitbodedut (or hisbodedus, literally "self-seclusion") or hitbonenut/hisbonenus ("contemplation").
Through the centuries, meditation practices have been developed in many movements, including among Maimonideans (Moses Maimonides and Abraham Maimonides), Kabbalists (Abraham Abulafia, Isaac the Blind, Azriel of Gerona, Moses Cordovero, Yosef Karo and Isaac Luria), Hasidic rabbis (Baal Shem Tov, Schneur Zalman of Liadi and Nachman of Breslov), Musar movement rabbis (Israel Salanter and Simcha Zissel Ziv), Conservative movement rabbis (Alan Lew), Reform movement rabbis (Lawrence Kushner and Rami Shapiro), and Reconstructionist movement rabbi (Shefa Gold).
In this Dossier
Abraham Abulafia in the context of Joseph Gikatilla
Joseph ben Abraham Chiquitilla (Hebrew: יוסף בן אברהם ג'יקטיליה, Spanish: Chiquitilla, "the very little one") (born 1248 in Medinaceli; died after 1305 in Peñafiel) was a Castilian kabbalist. Gikatilla, who was at first greatly influenced by Abraham Abulafia's ecstatic, prophetic system of kabbalism, soon showed a greater affinity for philosophy. Gikatilla made an original attempt to provide a detailed yet lucid and systematic exposition of kabbalism. He was also the originator of the doctrine equating the infinite, Ein Sof, with the first of the ten Sefirot. The conception was rejected by the majority of kabbalists from the 16th century onward, but his works continued to be highly esteemed and were published in many editions. His writings reflect the numerous intellectual currents that converged in Castile in the last third of the 13th century and formed a unique milieu for Jewish mysticism in the late Middle Ages. His works, especially his major work, Sha'are Orah (Gates of Light, before 1293), had a profound influence on the later development of both Jewish and Christian mysticism.
In different manuscripts of the work the author's name is variously written "Gribzul," "Karnitol," and "Necatil," all corruptions of "Gikatilla."