Isaac the Blind

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Part of a series on Kabbalah

Sephirot · Qliphoth · Raziel · Ein Sof · Tzimtzum · Tree of Life · Seder hishtalshelus · Jewish meditation · Kabbalistic astrology · Jewish views of astrology
People
Shimon bar Yochai · Moshe Cordovero · Isaac the Blind · Bahya ben Asher · Nahmanides · Azriel · Isaac Luria · Chaim Vital · Jacob Emden · Jonathan Eybeschutz · Chaim ibn Attar · Nathan Adler · Vilna Gaon · Shalom Sharabi · Chaim Joseph David Azulai · Shlomo Eliyashiv · Baba Sali · Ben Ish Chai
Texts
Zohar · Sefer Yetzirah · Bahir · Heichalot
Categories
Kabbalah · Judaism · Jewish mysticism · Occult
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Rabbi Yitzhak Saggi Nehor רַבִּי יִצְחַק סַגִּי נְהוֹר, also known as Isaac the Blind, (c. 1160-1235, Provence, France) has the Aramaic epithet "Saggi Nehor" meaning "of Much Light" in the sense of having excellent eyesight, an ironic euphemism for being blind. He was a famous writer on Kabbalah (Jewish mysticism). Some historians suspect him to be the author of the Book of the Bahir, an important early text of Kabbalah. Others (especially Gershom Scholem, see his Origins of the Kabbalah, p. 253) characterize this view as an "erroneous and totally unfounded hypothesis".

He was the son of a famous talmudist Abraham ben David of Posquières (Ravad).

The Bahir first appeared in the Middle Ages, around 1200 CE in France. It discusses a number of ideas that became important for Kabbalah, and even though the origins of the anonymous work are obscure, there were important Kabbalists who were writing at the same time in France. The most influential of these was Isaac the Blind.

Isaac knew about the Bahir, but was strongly influenced by the philosophy of Neo-Platonism.

[edit] Isaac the Blind's mystical concepts

He considered the sefirot as having their origins in a hidden and infinite level deep within the Ayn Sof, or Divine Being.

He believed that from the Ayn Sof emanated Mahshavah (Divine Thought), which was the first supernatural quality. The rest of the sefirot emanated from the Divine Thought. Individual beings in the world are material manifestation of the sefirot, albeit on a lower level of reality. Mystic experience aids in reascending the levels of emanations to unite with Divine Thought.

This image [1] is popularly thought to be a portrait of Rabbi Isaac.

The most famous student of Isaac the Blind was Azriel.

[edit] Cultural references

Contemporary composer Osvaldo Golijov has a clarinet quintet called The Dreams and Prayers of Isaac the Blind. It has been recorded by the Kronos Quartet together with clarinet player David Krakauer of The Klezmatics.
The character Isaac Mendez from the NBC TV series Heroes may have been named after Isaac the Blind, with Isaac Mendez' eyes whiting out when he paints the future.
In her latest release Confessions on a Dancefloor, Madonna might refer to Isaac the Blind in her song called Isaac, encouraging him to "wrestle with [your] darkness - angels call [your] name - can you hear what they are saying - will you ever be the same".
Gabriel Garcia Marquez mentions Isaac the Blindman in One Hundred Years of Solitude: "You can have them," he said in Spanish. "The last man who read these books must have been Isaac the Blindman, so consider well what you're doing" (366).