ספר 'פוקח עוורים' - ידיעות חדשות לתולדות ספרות הקבלה

Sefer Poqeaḥ Ivrim (He who Opens the Eyes of the Blind) was written in the Spanish town of Medina de Pomar, in the year 1439, by a kabbalist who is known only as the son of his father, Don Salomon de Vilialon. This article describes Sefer Poqeaḥ Ivrim and examines some of its sources, which contain information important to the history of kabbalistic literature. The book, which is found in MS. Parma de Rossi 1397, has escaped the notice of kabbalah scholars, and only a portion of it, copied in two MSS. without mentioning the source of the material has been discussed in research literature. Sefer Poqeaḥ Ivrim is one of the few kabbalist works written in Spain in the first half of the 15th century. The book deals with the importance and immutability of the Torah, the merits of fulfillment of the Torah's precepts and of prayer, the status of the Jews compared with other nations and the merits of the Sephardic Jewry. A central theme in the book, to which one of its chapters is dedicated, is the excellence of the kabbalah, seen by the author as the key to the Jewish faith. The author of Sefer Poqeaḥ Ivrim quotes from his sources at length. Some of the kabbalistic works he cites have not survived elsehwere, and others constitute the most complete text available. The sources cited in the book include the most complete text extant of the Kabbalistic epistle that was attributed by Gershom Scholem to Rabbi Isaac ha-Cohen. Also included in the book is the Ma'amar al Pnimiut ha-Torah, attributed to Nahmanides, which is known only from its citation in the fourth chapter of Poqeaḥ Ivrim. A most important source cited in the book is an unknown work by Rabbi Moses of Burgos, Sefer Ta'alumot Ḥokhma. The passage cited from this book relates the tradition that Maimonides was instructed in kabbalah by Rabbi Jacob ha-Nazir and includes other important traditions on the beginning of kabbalah.