What do you think?
Rate this book
Sefer ha-Bahir: The Ultimate Guide to Understanding the Bahir and Its Influence on Kabbalah and Jewish Mysticism
Uncover the many secrets of the mysterious and complex Sefer ha-Bahir!Sefer ha-Bahir has been the subject of scrutiny and debate for hundreds of years. Ambiguity about its dating and authorship have consumed Jewish scholarship's greatest minds over countless ages.Born in the Ancient Near East's cultural cauldron, Sefer ha-Bahir was not written in ancient times, although many ideas found in its pages hail from them. According to scholars, this fragmented document – scattered to the winds and then reassembled – would appear to us today to be one of Kabbalah's foundational documents.It's in Bahir that we first read of the sefirot. But the sefirot of Bahir are not the sefirot of later Kabbalah, not even of Sefer Yetzirah. These sefirot are seen through a completely different lens, a lens which ascribes to them seven voices and three sayings and a pivotal role in the Creation narrative of Genesis.In this book, you'll learn the fascinating story of Bahir, How Sefer ha-Bahir was first published and how it was written over the course of many agesThe structure of the modern form of the Bahir and who's responsible for itWhat the ten utterances areThe concept of God's concealment, as explained in the text, and what "hester panim" meansHow the Hebrew language is an active agent of CreationWho the Masoretes are and how vowels and cantillations added new meaning to this adqab (all consonant) languageWho Adam Kadmon is and why he and Adam, Bad Boy of Creation, are and are not the same "guy"What the seven voices concern the sefirot and the theophany at Mt. HorebHow the ten commandments figure into the Kabbalistic model of CreationWhat the 613 mitzvot mean in Judaism and their functional purpose in tikkunHow the Tetragrammaton came to be the highest name of God and how it's not really a name at allThe connection between glory and wisdomWho Gershom Scholem and Aryeh Kaplan were and how their contributions to understanding Sefer ha-Bahir catapulted it into the public consciousness of this Modern eraWhat Neo-Platonism concerns Sefer ha-BahirWhat Shekhinah is and what it has to do with the "Victory of Victories" – the healing of CreationGet this book for an exciting and in-depth discussion of Sefer ha-Bahir, its place in the canon of Kabbalah, and the unique way it tells the story of how Creation was accomplished and humanity's role as God's partner in healing it. Click the “add to cart” button to get your copy of this book!
109 pages, Kindle Edition
Published April 9, 2021
43 people are currently reading
28 people want to read
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews
May 8, 2021
Read Only If...
I normally like the spiritual and metaphysical books written by this author. With a few exceptions, she has a good way of distilling down big concepts within those realms into just 106 PDF pages. (How she gets her books to be that precise length nearly all the time is beyond me!) But I find that subjects I already know at least some about make those books of hers relatively easy reads. When she writes about subjects I know nothing or have only a vague knowledge of, I find those books less satisfying… and sometimes incomprehensible. And this is one of those latter books. I have heard of the Kabbalah and Jewish mysticism, of course, but not specifically the Sefer Ha-Bahir. Right from the introduction, the author makes big assumptions about the reader's knowledge and plunges forward as if we all knew something about the topic at hand, which I don't. I got lost rather quickly; the author left me behind, unfortunately, with her assumptions. I would have liked to have understood the topic, which is why I picked up the book at a book review site. If you already have some knowledge of Jewish mysticism and the Kabbalah, you might have better luck with this book than I did.
I received a free copy of this book, but that did not affect my review.
I normally like the spiritual and metaphysical books written by this author. With a few exceptions, she has a good way of distilling down big concepts within those realms into just 106 PDF pages. (How she gets her books to be that precise length nearly all the time is beyond me!) But I find that subjects I already know at least some about make those books of hers relatively easy reads. When she writes about subjects I know nothing or have only a vague knowledge of, I find those books less satisfying… and sometimes incomprehensible. And this is one of those latter books. I have heard of the Kabbalah and Jewish mysticism, of course, but not specifically the Sefer Ha-Bahir. Right from the introduction, the author makes big assumptions about the reader's knowledge and plunges forward as if we all knew something about the topic at hand, which I don't. I got lost rather quickly; the author left me behind, unfortunately, with her assumptions. I would have liked to have understood the topic, which is why I picked up the book at a book review site. If you already have some knowledge of Jewish mysticism and the Kabbalah, you might have better luck with this book than I did.
I received a free copy of this book, but that did not affect my review.
July 9, 2024
Le doy 5 de 5 estrellas a "Sefer ha-Bahir: La guía definitiva para entender el Bahir y su influencia en la Cábala y el misticismo judío" de Mari Silva.
La autora realiza un trabajo increíble al desentrañar algunos misterios de este texto místico tan complejo. Comienza explicando la historia del Sefer ha-Bahir, un rompecabezas literario que se empezó a redactar en el siglo I y se completó en el siglo XII. A lo largo de 1.200 años, este libro ha fascinado a tantos eruditos y ha sido la base del misticismo judío, explicando simbolismos y filosofías religiosas sin intenciones proselitistas.
Es un texto esencial para entender las bases del misticismo judío y nos abre la puerta a lecturas más complejas como las de Scholem o Kaplan.
La autora realiza un trabajo increíble al desentrañar algunos misterios de este texto místico tan complejo. Comienza explicando la historia del Sefer ha-Bahir, un rompecabezas literario que se empezó a redactar en el siglo I y se completó en el siglo XII. A lo largo de 1.200 años, este libro ha fascinado a tantos eruditos y ha sido la base del misticismo judío, explicando simbolismos y filosofías religiosas sin intenciones proselitistas.
Es un texto esencial para entender las bases del misticismo judío y nos abre la puerta a lecturas más complejas como las de Scholem o Kaplan.
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews