Yehudah ha-Levi. [Kuzari] Liber Cosri. Basel, Georg Decker, 1660

Translated into Latin by the Hebraist Johannes Buxtorf (II), with the Hebrew text adjacent, this famous defence of Judaism in the form of a dialogue between a pagan prince and a Jewish sage contains a section on the Sefer Yetzirah (part IV, 25), which begins with 'Judaeus' remarking on the Sefer Yetzirah that it is 'profundus, & longam requirit explicationem [it is profound, and requires thorough explanation].

Editor Buxtorf felt called upon, incidentally, to warn the reader about the dangers of the Kabbalah in a note to ha-Levi's exposition of the Sefer Yetzirah: 'Cabalistica enim doctrina abyssus est imperscrutabilis, labyrinthus inextricabilis, nec introitum ostendens nec exitum: fructus ejus nullus' (p. 318) – the doctrine of the Kabbalah is an unfathomable abyss, a dark labyrinth, without entrance or exit: it is a doctrine entirely unprofitable. The interested reader is referred to Rittangelius' edition of Sefer Yetzirah, which had appeared 18 years earlier.