Kabbalah - Mysteries of Kabbalistic Thought

3 Kabbalah of the early Middle Ages

There were certain early rishonim who are known to have been experts in Kabbalah. One of the best known is Nahmanides (the Ramban) (1194-1270) whose commentary on the Torah is considered to be based on Kabbalistic knowledge as well as Bahya ben Asher (the Rabbeinu Behaye) (d. 1340). Another was Isaac the Blind (1160-1235) who wrote about the mystical classic the Bahir,

Azriel was one of the most important Jewish mystics in the Spanish town of Gerona (north of Barcelona) during the thirteenth century when it was an important center of the Kabbalah. (The most important figure from the kabbalist community of Gerona was Nahmanides.)

Azriel was the most important student of the neo-Platonist mystic Isaac the Blind.

Azriel’s writings covered subjects pertaining to the sefirot and included his mystical interpretation of Jewish liturgy and of the aggadah.

While his teacher Isaac the Blind considered Divine Thought to be the first supernatural quality to emanate from the Ayn Sof (or Divine Being), Azriel argued that Divine Will was the first emanation. Therefore, it was the act of the will rather than the act of the intellect that was the first manifestation of God’s Divine Being.