The rabbinate of Livorno was widely known for its scholarship, as it attracted new learned members from the East, and had connections with the Sephardim of Amsterdam and London. Many merchants also devoted themselves to study, taking up medicine, astronomy, philosophy, and the classics. Through its connection with the East, Livorno was always a center for cabalists, especially at the time of the Shabbethaian controversies. In the 19th century, cabalists and mystics still found support in the city.
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If this identification is correct, Moses was one of the foremost cabalists of southern France, as Jacob's words in the passage cited indicate, although Moses is not otherwise known as a mystic.
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In November 2017, Kasukuwere fled the country alongside other G40 cabalists, Professor Jonathan Moyo and Mr Patrick Zhuwao, who remain in exile. After six months and six days in self-imposed exile, he finally returned home.
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First edition, second printing 2004. St. Paul, MN: Llewellyn Publications 2004, p. 50, accessed on 28 March 2013. Christian Cabalists sought to transform Kabbalah into "a dogmatic weapon to turn back against the Jews to compel their conversion—starting with Ramon Llull", whom Harvey J. Hames called "the first Christian to acknowledge and appreciate kabbalah as a tool of conversion", though Llull was not a Kabbalist himself nor versed in Kabbalah.
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Another responsum is cited in Lampronti's Paḥad Yiẓḥaḳ. Both he and his brother Jacob were determined opponents of the followers of Shabbethai Ẓebi, against whom they wrote a volume of poems entitled Ẓebi Muddaḥ (ed. Marco Mortara, in Ḳobeẓ 'al Yad of the Meḳiẓe Nirdamim, 1885). Frances also opposed the cabalists, creating so strong a feeling among the rabbis of Mantua that they destroyed his brother's published poems and forced him (Frances) to leave the city.
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He wandered from place to place, even to Algiers, settling finally in Livorno. He wrote to his friend Abraham Kokab to protest against his busying himself with classical literature. In addition to many occasional poems Frances wrote, in conjunction with his brother Jacob, Wikkuaḥ Itiel we-Ukal, a dialogue on woman, and Wikkuaḥ Libni we-Shim'i, on his brother's poem against the cabalists. Two of Immanuel's poems were published by Nepi-Ghirondi in "Toledot Gedole Yisrael" (pp. 291–293), others by Abraham Baruch Piperno in Ḳol 'Ugab (1846).
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Joseph ibn Shem-ob was one of the most learned writers of his time. His knowledge of science and philosophy was intimate, and he had a very thorough acquaintance with Aristotle, his chief commentator Averroes, and the prominent Jewish, Muslim, and Christian writers. At the same time he was an independent and outspoken critic. He not only passed judgment upon Christianity and Islam, but he criticized Maimonides, with whose fundamental ideas he was not in sympathy, and maintained that the claim made by the cabalists that Shimon bar Yochai was the author of the Zohar was baseless.
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The effect of this on the Italian Jews was apparent in their love of freedom of thought and their esteem for literature, as well as in their adherence to the literal rendering of the Biblical texts and their opposition to fanatical cabalists and mystic theories. Among other devotees of these theories was Immanuel ben Solomon of Rome, the celebrated friend of Dante Aligheri. The discord between the followers of Maimonides and his opponents wrought most serious damage to the interests of Judaism. The rise of poetry in Italy at the time of Dante influenced the Jews also.
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He then studied in the University of Padua, and graduated as doctor of medicine. In 1704 Morpurgo published in Venice his "'Eẓ ha-Da'at," a philosophical commentary on Jedaiah Bedersi's "Beḥinat ha-'Olam." At the end of this work was printed a satire upon the cabalists by Jacob Frances, on account of which Morpurgo was persecuted by the rabbis of Padua. At the same time he devoted himself to the study of the Talmud and rabbinics, and in 1709 he obtained a rabbi's diploma from Leon Briel, chief rabbi of Mantua (Preface to Morpurgo's "Shemesh Ẓedaḳah").
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He was born at Calamandrana in Piedmont, the scion of an illustrious and ancient family that came originally from Nice. Young Cordara studied at Rome under the Jesuits, and became a Jesuit himself at the age of fourteen. Subsequently he taught in various colleges of the Order, soon acquiring a great reputation not only for knowledge of general literature, but especially for proficiency in poetry, rhetoric and history. A brilliant discourse on Pope Gregory XIII, whose financial generosity led to the renaming of the Roman College into 'Gregorian university', and a satire on the Cabalists of the day won for him admission into the Academy of the Arcadians.
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They set but little store by the goods of this earth, and were members of a communistic fraternity. But it is inadmissible to construe from these elements of their hopes and habits the inference that in them is to be found a genuine Jewish order of monks and ascetics. A stronger case against the theory that Judaism is a very uncongenial soil for the growth of Asceticism might be made out by an appeal to the later Jewish mystics, the Ḥasidim and Cabalists of various forms, all ecstatic fantastics, and—this is a point that must not be overlooked—more or less strongly under the influence of distinctly non- Jewish conceits. See below, Examples of Jewish Asceticism.
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The king ordered a public investigation at Valladolid, in which the representatives of the Jewish community were confronted with Abner. The conclusion was announced in the shape of a royal edict forbidding the use of the formula in question (February, 1336). He further accused the Jews, for instance, of constantly warring among themselves and splitting into hostile religious schisms; in support of this statement he adduces an alleged list of the "sects" prevailing among them: Sadducees, Samaritans, and other extinct division. He makes two "sects" of Pharisees and Rabbinites, says that cabalists believe in a tenfold God, and speaks of a brand-new "sect" believing in a dual Deity, God and Metatron.
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Sefirotic diagram from Christian von Rosenroth's Kabbala Denudata. In Knorr Rosenroth's view the Adam Kadmon of the cabalists is Jesus, and the three highest sefirot represent the Trinity. He intended to make a Latin translation of the Zohar and the Tiḳḳunim, and he published as preliminary studies the first two volumes of his Kabbala Denudata, sive Doctrina Hebræorum Transcendentalis et Metaphysica Atque Theologia (Sulzbach, 1677–78). They contain a cabalistic nomenclature, the Idra Rabbah and Idra Zuṭa and the Sifra di-Ẓeni'uta, cabalistic essays of Naphtali Herz ben Jacob Elhanan, History of Messianic Speculation in Israel Abba Hillel Silver 2003 "Naphtali Herz ben Jacob Elhanan (end of 16 a), German Kabbalist and disciple of Luria, author of 'Emek ha- Melek, a treatise on the elements of Kabbala" etc.
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From the European Renaissance on, Judaic Kabbalah became a significant influence in non-Jewish culture, fully divorced from the separately evolving Judaic tradition. Kabbalah received the interest of Christian Hebraist scholars and occultists, who freely syncretised and adapted it to diverse non-Jewish spiritual traditions and belief systems of Western esotericism.Kabbalah: A Very Short Introduction, Joseph Dan, Oxford University Press 2007, Chapter 5 - Modern Times I: The Christian Kabbalah Christian Cabalists from the 15th-18th centuries adapted what they saw as ancient Biblical wisdom to Christian theology, while Hermeticism lead to Kabbalah's incorporation into Western magic through Hermetic Qabalah.Christian and Hermetic versions of Kabbalah are receiving their own scholarship in Renaissance Studies and Academic study of Western esotericism today Presentations of Kabbalah in occult and New Age books on Kabbalah bear little resemblance to Judaic Kabbalah.
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