Notes: A commentary on Sefer Ma'rekhet ha-Elohut

R. Yehuda Hayat, an exiled Kabbalist from Spain, wrote Minhat Yehuda, a commentary to the early fourteenth century anonymous Sefer Ma'arekhet ha-Elohut, in Mantua, Italy, in the early sixteenth century. In the introduction to his commentary, R. Yehuda Hayat describes the sufferings he endured during his travels from Spain, via North Africa, to Italy, and discusses the importance of studying Kabbalah.

Hayat, who wrote his commentary at the request of the Sephardic exiles that resided in Mantua, presents in his introduction a list of recommended Kabbalistic treaties, foremost amongst them, the Zohar. The Zohar, written in Spain in the late thirteenth century and attributed to the second-century sage, R. Simon bar Yochai, gained an important place amongst Sephardic Kabbalists in the late fifteenth and early sixteenth century, but was almost unknown in Italy in this period. To the list of recommended books, R. Yehuda Hayat juxtaposes a list of books he rejects, which includes philosophical interpretations of the Kabbalah, as well as the writings of the thirteenth-century Sephardic Kabbalist, R. Abraham Abulfia, the founder of the prophetic school of Kabbalah.

While R. Yehuda Hayat's recommended list, including the Zohar, reflects the Sephardic Kabbalistic canon of the late fifteenth century, the books that R. Yehuda Hayat warns against represent the forms of Kabbalah which were current in Italy in this period. Hayat's emphatic - and very influential - declarations of the sanctity and authority of the Zohar served to undermine current Italian Kabbalistic trends and enhance the cultural hegemony of the Sephardic exiles.

R. Yehuda Hayat's strong declaration of the sanctity and authority of the Zohar was very influential in the sixteenth century. His commentary to Sefer Marekhet ha-Elohut was printed twice, in Ferrara and Mantua, in the same year - and probably as a preparation to - the first printings of the Zohar, in Cremona and Mantua in 1558-1560.

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