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Written Torah in the Book of Hidden Light

Summary/Abstract: It is widely accepted in Jewish historiography that the study of the text of the written Torah (Tanakh) was a principal religious duty for the learned men, one that was exempted from any evolution. This hypothesis deserves a careful analysis. Initially, in the period of confrontation with (Judeo)christianity Tanakh was not sufficient for self-identification because the advocates of “rival” religions had a version of their own, the Septuagint. This is why Mishna was created, for which the Toran was the source, not the text. It was precisely Mishna that Palestine and Babylonian academies placed at the centre of its monumental commentaries. Aggadic midrashim were of marginal importance. Since the 11th century, Talmud was the chief object of study. In the 12th and 13th century the Tosafot followers equated the oral Torah with the written Torah in terms of sanctity. The reading of Tanakh once again became first of all a source for studies of Halakha. For Maimonides, too. The Rhineland Hasidim were looking for signs of the Will of the Creator (ratson ha-Bore’) also in the written Torah, but the „also” is important here. The author seeks to demonstrate that in 13th-century Judaism the only intellectual milieu we are aware of that assigned the central position of the written Torah (Tora she-bi-khtav) in the studies were the Languedoc mystics, the authors of the Book of Hidden Light (Sefer ha-bahir). To them the Torah, by contrast to the synagogue scrolls, was a book (codex) bearing the marks of the masorah of divine origin, a tool of Creation, the key to Revelation and the path of Salvation. And only it was equal in its sanctity to Sifrei Tora.

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