Kabbalistic Diagram and Calendar

Unknown

1507

Manuscript page of Hebrew text with diagram in the center of a circle with circumscribed square, half circles, and thick lines, as well as a thick curved tail below.

Manuscript page of circle with Hebrew text inside and two triangles and two squares on its perimeter.

These pages come from the same manuscript of a midrashic commentary. The first image depicts the inner processes of the divine emanations (the sefirot). Visualization plays an important part in kabbalah, and these diagrams provided a divine cartography, mapping out the sefirot via text and images, with the godhead at the top. The second image is an astrological calendar containing a zodiac rota, divided into twelve astrological signs. The rota was one of the authoritative schemata that kabbalists used to map the structure of the sefirot.

Credits

© The British Library Board, Add MS 27089. From the collection of The British Library, The Polonsky Foundation Catalogue of Digitised Hebrew Manuscripts.
© The British Library Board, Add MS 27089. From the collection of The British Library, The Polonsky Foundation Catalogue of Digitised Hebrew Manuscripts.

Published in: The Posen Library of Jewish Culture and Civilization, vol. 5.