Joseph ben Abraham Gikatilla (1248 – after 1305) (
Hebrew: יוסף בן אברהם ג'יקטיליה,
Spanish: Chiquitilla, "the very little one") was a Spanish
kabbalist, student of
Abraham Abulafia.
Biography
Born at
Medinaceli,
Old Castile (one of the former qualifying regions into which Spain was subdivided), Gikatilla was for some time a pupil of the kabbalist
Abraham Abulafia, by whom he is highly praised; his
kabbalistic knowledge became so profound that he was supposed to be able to work miracles, and on this account was called "Joseph Ba'al ha-Nissim".. (the Thaumaturge or literally Master of Miracles;
Zacuto, Yuḥasin, p. 224a). Like his master, Gikatilla occupied himself with mystic combinations and transpositions of letters and numbers; indeed, Abulafia considered him as the continuator of his school (
Adolf Jellinek, B.H. iii, p. xl). But Gikatilla was not an adversary of
philosophy; on the contrary, he tried to reconcile philosophy with kabbalah, declaring that the latter is the foundation of the former. He, however, strove after the higher science, that is,
mysticism. His works in general represent a progressive development of philosophical insight into mysticism. His first work shows that he had considerable knowledge of secular sciences, and that he was familiar with the works of
Ibn Gabirol,
Ibn Ezra,
Maimonides, and others. He died at
Peñafiel after 1305.
In different manuscripts of the work the author's name is variously written "Gribzul," "Karnitol," and "Necatil," all corruptions of "Gikatilla."
Works
Ginnat Egoz
Gikatilla was a prolific writer; he wrote his first work (Ginnat Egoz, גנת אגוז) when only twenty-six. It is a kabbalistic treatise in three parts (
Hanau, 1615).
The title, taken from the
Song of Solomon. vi.11, means "garden of nuts". Kabalisitically, ginnat "garden" consists of the initials of
gematria,
notarikon, and
temurah, the three main elements of Kabbalah, while egoz "nut" is the emblem of mysticism.
The first part, in five chapters, treats of the various
names of God occurring in the
Hebrew Bible. According to Gikatilla, The
Tetragrammaton is the only name which represents the substance of God; the other names are merely predicates of the divine attributes. The Tetragrammaton stands for God as He is, while
Elohim denotes God as the creative power. The name
Tzevaot "armies", he says, applies to all the beings of the three natures, earthly, heavenly (or spheres), and spirits (or forms). The interpretation of tzevaot as "armies of letters" leads him over to the second part.
The second part treats the letters of the alphabet. He declares that the number ten emanated from the Tetragrammaton, the primitive cause, and is the source of all being; he attempts to prove his statement by different combinations based on religion, philosophy, physics, and mysticism. He shows that the
Talmudic view that space is filled with spirits agrees with the belief of the philosophers that there is no vacuum. He also treats here of the revolutions of the sun and moon, giving the relative sizes of the planets.
The third part is a treatise, in four chapters, on the vowels. The three primitive vowels (
holem,
shuruq, and
hiriq) represent the upper, middle, and lower worlds; the three compound ones,
tsere,
segol, and
shewa, represent the composition or the construction of the worlds; the "pataḥ" and "ḳameẓ" represent their movements.
Gikatilla at times criticizes the Sefer Yeṣirah and the Pirḳe Hekalot. The seven heavens (
Ḥag. 12a) are identified by him with the
classical planets. He holds
Maimonides in great esteem even when he opposes him, and quotes him very often. Other authorities quoted by him are Ibn Gabirol,
Samuel ibn Naghrela, and
Abraham ibn Ezra.
Isaac ben Samuel of Acre in his Me'irat 'Enayyim severely criticizes Gikatilla for too free usage of the Tetragrammaton.
Sha'are Orah (
Mantua, 1561) deals with the names of God.
It discusses 300 names,[6] organized into ten chapters, one for each
sephirah. Each sephirah has one main name, but may have many others. Some names are associated with more than one sephirah.
The purpose of the book is "so that you can understand and experience the 'fountain of living waters' (Jer. 2,13) that flows from all his names, and when you attain this 'then you will prosper and have good success' (
Joshua 1,8)".[7]
Sha'ar Meshalim, a kabbalistic essay in 138 paragraphs;
Oṣar ha-Kavod, according to Jellinek, the same as the Sodot ha-Miẓwot, a commentary on
Song of Songs.
Hassagot (unpublished) consists of strictures on The Guide for the Perplexed, Gikatilla used
al-Ḥarizi's translation, in which he corrects many mistakes and sometimes differs from Maimonides. It seems that he wrote the Hassagot at the beginning of his literary career when he was more of a philosopher and less of a mystic.
Sod HaNahash, kabbalistic revelations of the divine serpent
Jellinek thinks that Gikatilla composed a kabbalistic treatise entitled Hekalot of the same character as the Pirqe Hekalot.
Jewish Encyclopedia bibliography
Adolf Jellinek, Beiträge zur Gesch. der Kabbala, ii.61 et seq.;
Zunz, Additamenta (to the catalogue of the Hebrew manuscripts in Leipzig), pp. 320–321;
Cassel, in Ersch and Gruber, Encyc. section ii, part 31, pp. 76–80;
S. Sachs, in Ha-Yonah, p. 80;
M. H. Landauer, in Litteraturblatt des Orients, vi.227-228;