Moses ben Maimon, Liber doctor perplexorum. Basel,
Ludwig Koenig, 1629

'Bien étonnés de se trouver ensemble': Maimonides, the 'Prince of Jewish rationalist philosophers', was occasionally claimed by Kabbalists to be one of their own. Chaim Wirszubski detected Maimonides' transformation into a Kabbalist nowhere more effectively than in the translation of Hayyei ha-Nefesh, Abulafia's mystical commentary on the Guide of the Perplexed by Flavius Mithridates, one of Pico della Mirandola's Hebrew tutors. This translation by Johannes Buxtorf (II) follows the Hebrew translation made from the Arabic of Maimonides by Samuel ben Tibbon.

Amulet

Printed sheet, late 17th century or early 18th century, 185x130 mm. This sheet was inserted in one of the library's copies of Jean de Pauly's translation of the Zohar. The sheet contains two texts within borders, which are amulets, one for a male ('lazakhar'), the other one for a female ('lanekevah'). The invocations mention Adam, Eve and Lilith, 'Chavah Rishonah' (the first Eve, who is identical with Lilith), also devils or angels: Sanoy, Sansinoy, Smangeluf, Shmari'el (the guardian) and Hasdi'el (the merciful). A few lines in Yiddish are followed by the dialogue between the prophet Elijah and Lilith when he met her with her host of demons to kill the mother and take her new-born child ('to drink her blood, suck her bones and eat her flesh'). She tells Elijah that she will lose her power if someone uses her secret names, which she reveals at the end: 'lilith, abitu, abizu, hakash, avers hikpodu, ayalu, matrota...'.