Front Matter (PDF) - Stanford University Press

on the secret aspects of Naḥmanides' work. That circle was
commentaries
more conservative in its views of kabbalistic creativity than was
signi®cantly
Castilian group. But we could easily imagine a parallel school of Castilian
the
with the ``Gnostics'' of the mid-thirteenth century and
kabbalistsÐbeginning
over the same three generationsÐwhose collective literary
extendingforward
much freer and richer in imagination than the Naḥmanidean corpus,
product,
the body of work ®nally edited into what later generations have come
included
know as the Zohar. It may indeed be that the competition between these
to
schools of mystical thought had some role in advancingthe editingprocess
two
®nally resulted in the Zohar as we know it in its printed version.
that
Zohar was composed in the Castile of the late thirteenth century, a period
The
marked the near completion of the Reconquista and somethingof a golden
that
of enlightenment in the history of Christian Spain. As the wars of conquest
age
the monarchy was able to ground itself and establish central authority
ended,
the semi-independent and often unruly Spanish nobility. This included
over
for protection of the Jews, who generally fared better at the
responsibility
of kings than at the arbitrary mercy of local rivals. Alfonso X (1252±
hands
was known as el Sabio or ``the Wise'' because of his interest in the
1284)
he was willingto learn from Jews and Muslims when necessaryÐas
sciencesÐwhich
well as history, literature, and art.
retained a high degree of juridical and cultural autonomy, as well as
Jews
of religious practice, in the Castile of this period. They constituted a
freedom
percentage of city and town dwellers, generally choosing to live in
signi®cant
neighborhoods and communities. But Jews were seen by Chris-
self-enclosed
society as barely tolerated outsiders, and they viewed themselves as humiliatetian
and victimized exiles. As an emerging class of Christian burghers came
see the Jews as rivals, the economic opportunities afforded by the early Reconquista
to
years were gradually eroded. Jews were required to wear distinguish-
synagogue buildingwas restricted, and various burdens of extra
inggarb,
came to be an expected part of Jewish life.
taxation
signi®cantly, Jews were under constant pressure to convert to Christianity
Most
in the atmosphere of a church triumphant with the glory of having
the Moorish armies and standingon the verge of endingthe ``stain''
vanquished
Islamic incursion into Christian Europe. Alfonso X commissioned transla-
of
of both the Qur'an and the Talmud into Castilian, partly out of scholarly
tions
but also as an aid to the ongoing missionary campaign. The success of
interest
Reconquista itself was trumpeted as great testimony to the validity of
the
claims. The Christian supersessionist theology, beginning with the
Christian
Fathers but growing in stridency through the Middle Ages, claimed
Church
that Judaism after Christ was an empty shell, a formalist attachment
tirelessly
Introduction
V
liv