This is one of the rare autobiographic books in Kabbalah. Abulafia relates his experiences and visions, some of which are really frightening. Most notable are his encounters with angels.

Discover the Kabbalah classic that reveals the divine feminine, reincarnation, and the power of being human. This remarkable collection of fifty-one teachings from Sefer ha-Bahir features facing-page commentary by Geoffrey W. Dennis for easy understanding and readability. Enrich your spirituality with these fascinating entries, specifically chosen to help you learn the principle ideas and themes of Jewish mysticism. By translating the most stimulating and accessible passages from Sefer ha-Bahir with concise literary and spiritual commentary, Geoffrey W. Dennis modernizes each entry and brings the wisdom of the ancient text to the contemporary world. This compelling collection shows you the full scope of the Bahir and will give you a new appreciation for its teachings. Praise: "Geoffrey Dennis has provided a doorway into the brilliance of the Sefer ha-Bahir, deeply enriching us. Here is a truly significant model of how teachings can communicate over centuries to inform and expand our current vision. I am honored to recommend Rabbi Dennis's new book to all those desiring to enrich their own spiritual journey."--Rabbi Ted Falcon, PhD, spiritual counselor and author of A Journey of Awakening: Kabbalistic Meditations on the Tree of Life "Geoffrey Dennis's Sefer ha-Bahir is the best translation available of one of the hardest, yet most rewarding, texts of Kabbalah. Forget the pop stuff; this is the real thing, in all its lucidity, opacity, simplicity, and complexity. Best of all, Dennis's renderings and commentary give the text room both to breathe and to mystify. Highly recommended."--Rabbi Dr. Jay Michaelson, author of Everything Is God: The Radical Path of Nondual Judaism and director of the Elat Chayyim Meditation Program "What is constant throughout the book is the sense of Dennis's love for these early Hebrew teachings...He manages to lift the reader to the heights of mesmerized listener without sacrificing the academic/historical context of the teachings. This is a don't-miss book for anyone seriously interested in the Hebrew roots of modern mysticism."--Anna Jedrziewski, Retailing Insight "[Dennis] supplies a fluent translation of fifty-one key passages from [Sefer ha-Bahir], complete with annotations, commentary, and introductions that are both accessible to the general reader and insightful. A masterful achievement."--Richard S. Sarason, The Deutsch Family Professor of Rabbinics and Liturgy at Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion

Hundreds of years before the Inquisition, the Almohade invasion of Spain wiped out many of the Spanish Jewish communities in Muslim Andalusia ending the Golden Age of Spanish Jewry. Thousands of Jews fled north to Christian Spain, where they had to live among Karaite Jews very different from themselves. Philosopher Abraham ibn Daud responded to this upheaval by writing The Book of Tradition, known as Sefer ha-Qabbalah. This epice on Jewish history from ancient times to the 12th century eulogized Spanish Jewry and reminded readers of a once-thriving culture. In JPS's edition of this classic work, first puhlished in 1967, renowned scholar Gerson D. Cohen presents his translation of ibn Daud's entire text, as well as commentary and an extensive introduction that masterfully provides context for the reader.

Michael A. Morgan translates Mordecai Margaliath’s text of Sepher Ha-Razim, a fourth century CE magical text, into English. Sepher Ha-Razim includes a story about the book’s transmission from the angel Raziel to Noah eventually down to Solomon, six sections describing the nature, function, magical praxis and angelic inhabitants of six of the heavens, and the divine throne in the seventh heaven. With parallels to Talmudic passages, Enochic literature, and Hekhaloth literature, Sepher Ha-Razim sheds light on Greco-Roman magic in general and more specifically Jewish life in the early centuries CE.

Here are previously unavailable texts, including The Book Bahir and the writings of the Iyyum circle, that were written during the first one hundred years of this movement that was to become the most important current in Jewish mysticism. This movement began in the late 12th century among Rabbinic Judaism in southern Europe.

Amidst the rich panoply of Jewish Kabbalah, Abraham Abulafia (1240-c.1291) resonates the most with modern, philosophically minded seekers of direct mystical experience.In this Jewish handbook for meditation, Abulafia creatively combines ideas from Maimonides' Guide of the Perplexed (Moreh Nevuchim), the ancient Book of Creation (Sefer Yetzira) and Eleazar of Worms' Book of the Name (Sefer Ha-Shem) into an integrated method of concentrating on the Divine Name that opens the path to fulfilling the soul's deepest spiritual longings. Intense practice of Abulafia's methods of meditation propels the attentive soul into a state of awakened receptivity where the active divine influence can reach down to meet and illuminate the human intellect.

The first complete English translation of the Hebrew classic Sefer Ha-Aggadah brings to the English-speaking world the greatest and best-loved anthology of classical Rabbinic literature ever compiled. First published in Odessa in 1908-11, it was recognized immediately as a masterwork in its own right, and reprinted numerous times in Israel. The Hebrew poet Hayim Nahman Bialik and the renowned editor Yehoshua Hana Ravnitzky, the architects of this masterful compendium, selected hundreds of texts from the Talmud and midrashic literature and arranged them thematically, in order to provide their contemporaries with easy access to the national literary heritage of the Jewish people -- the texts of Rabbinic Judaism that remain at the heart of Jewish literacy today. Bialik and Ravnitzky chose Aggadah -- the non-legal portions of the Talmud and Midrash -- for their anthology. Loosely translated as "legends", Aggadah includes the genres of biblical exegesis, stories about biblical characters, the lives of the Talmudic era sages and their contemporary history, parables, proverbs, and folklore. A captivating melange of wisdom and piety, fantasy and satire, Aggadah is the expressive medium of the Jewish creative genius. The arrangement of this compendium reflects the theological concerns of the Rabbinic sages: the role of Israel and the nations; God, good and evil; human relations; the world of nature; and the art of healing. Here, the reader who wants to explore traditional Jewish views on a particular subject is treated to a selection of relevant texts at his fingertips but will soon become immersed in a way of thinking, exploring, and questioning that is the hallmark of Jewish inquiry. "Whatever the imagination can invent is found in the Aggadah," wrote the historian Leopold Zunz, "its purpose always being to teach man the ways of God." The Book of Legends/Sefer Ha-Aggadah, now available in william Braude's superbly annotated translation, enables modern Jews to experience firsthand the richness and excitement of their cultural inheritance.