Light is Sown: The Cultivation of Kabbalah in Medieval Castile

The book examines the intellectual journey of Moses de León of Guadalajara, the self-proclaimed “Light of the West” and reputed author of medieval kabbalah’s crowning literary achievement, the Zohar. It reaches bold conclusions about the process of kabbalah’s florescence in medieval Castile, based on intensive study of a major unpublished work of de León’s—the “Nameless Composition”—and a wealth of fragmentary texts preserved only in manuscript form that have eluded scholarly attention. The book focuses on de León’s regimen of pious living, his discourse on gender, his understanding of the Hebrew language, his signature thirteenfold speculation, his relationships with contemporaries, such as Joseph Gikatilla of Medinaceli, and his entanglements with both Christians and Muslims. The book also explores various contexts for understanding de León’s creativity and reception, including those of Alfonsine Castile, where innovation in supposedly ancient linguistic theories coincided with an imperial project of cultural annexation, and Renaissance Italy, where Christian apologists preserved otherwise lost kabbalistic writings. Critical discoveries provide unprecedented access to the enigmatic intellectual history of the Zohar and its worlds. The study correlates the large body of de León’s Hebrew writings with the canonical Zohar, tracing the parallel paths of their growth. It also reveals with clarity the mutually interreferential nature of the twin corpora at the heart of the Castilian Kabbalah—among the most glorious fruits of Jewish thought.