Creation Ex Nihilo and the Primordial Union of the First and Tenth Sefirot: Philosophy and Kabbalah in the Thought of Rabbi Joseph ben shalom Ashkenazi: philosophy and Kabbalah in the thought of Rabbi Joseph ben Shalom Ashkenazi

This study contributes to the field of Kabbalah in three areas: (a) The supposed tension with science in general and philosophy in particular in the works of R. Joseph, often portrayed as anti-philosophical, has not received the adequate attention of scholarship, save two pioneering studies. However, this study, wishes to portray the seeming contradiction between philosophical and the mythopoeic as a confluence, a characteristic which lies at the heart of this kabbalist's hermeneutical style. (b) Offering a neglected theosophical system whereby theogony, the sefirotic emanation, begins with the primordial union of the two sefirot, later to become the first and the tenth sefirot. (c) While there is still a debate over the relationships between various thirteenth-century Spanish kabbalists, this study offers an important first of its kind phenomenological comparison of creation ex nihilo according to the Catalonian R. Joseph and the Castilian Zohar.