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"The Wedding Canopy Is Constituted by the Being of These Sefirot": Illustrations of the Kabbalistic Huppah and Their Derivatives

2020; University of Pennsylvania Press; Volume: 110; Issue: 3 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1353/jqr.2020.0016

1553-0604

Uri Safrai, Eliezer Baumgarten,

Medieval and Classical Philosophy

From as early as the thirteenth century, the visual dimension of Jewish esotericism was manifest in various representations of the kabbalistic ilan (tree of life)—a diagram of the sefirot (emanations). Among the many kinds of the kabbalistic diagrams, this essay focuses on the early modern kabbalistic image of the huppah, the wedding canopy suspended over the bride and groom in a traditional Jewish wedding. These images represent the sefirotic structure as a ceremony, with bride, groom, and elements of the huppah as its dynamic components.