'סמאל ונקבתו': פירוש קהלת האבוד לר' משה די ליאון: פירוש קהלת האבוד לר' משה די ליאון

The famed Spanish Kabbalist R. Moses de León has been revered for centuries as redactor, or even author, of the Zohar. Yet certain sections of his later writings, which revealed certain peculiar concepts, have hitherto remained undiscovered. A variety of complex notions were expressed in his unpreserved beguiling commentary on Ecclesiastes (Sha'are Ṣedeq); recovering these ideas will form the subject of this study. Even though Sha'are Ṣedeq is referred to numerous times in his later books, the subject area of this commentary remained, together with the commentary itself, undisclosed. This analysis of the lost commentary reveals a vast conceptual field which brought de León's ideas to their maximal fruition. The central finding of this analysis of the lost commentary is one that this study terms 'Feminine Demonology': that is, the feminine evil forces that were attributed to the Godhead. These findings speculate as to the magical powers of these forces, their uniqueness in opposition to the masculine evil entities, and their relations to the 'holy forces'. Through a close study of those remaining texts in manuscript as well as in printed form, this article serves to reconstruct de León's conceptualization, important aspects of which have as yet not formed the subject of previous studies. The more general contribution of this article points to de León's affinity with features of the Zohar that may contribute to research fields of demonological trends in terms of how they have been conceived. This, of course, takes into account the methodological limitations invoked by the singular nature of the work. The author maintains that this accumulating theory has shaped the doctrine of evil in the late stages of Zoharic literature, which in turn have significant ramifications for Kabbalistic writings of later generations.