ר' יוסף ג'יקטיליה

Rav Yosef ben Avraham Gikatilla (5008/1248–c. 5065/1305), known also as the Mahari Gikatilla, was among the great mekubalim of Spain in the thirteenth century. He was born in Medinaceli, in Castile, and worked chiefly in Segovia. In his twenties he learned under Rav Avraham Abulafia, who called him his most successful talmid, and he occupied himself with the combinations and transpositions of letters and Names; so deep was his knowledge that he was called Yosef Baal HaNissim. Yet he was no adversary of philosophy — he labored to reconcile it with Kabbalah, holding the hidden wisdom to be the foundation of the revealed sciences.

At the age of twenty-six he wrote Ginnat Egoz, whose very title carries the initials of gematria, notarikon and temurah, treating the Names of Hashem, the letters of the alef-beis and the vowel-points. His most influential work is Shaarei Orah, the Gates of Light, a systematic exposition of the ten Sefirot and the Divine Names; the Arizal called it the key to the wisdom of the hidden Torah, and Rav Chaim of Volozhin taught that to fulfill the study of Kabbalah one should learn the Zohar together with Shaarei Orah. In it he distinguished the Name Havayah, which testifies to Hashem’s very being, from the Name Elokim, which points to His governance of nature.

Beside these he wrote Shaarei Tzedek on the ten Sefirot, Sefer HaNikkud, Sod HaChashmal on the vision of Yechezkel, Tzofnat Pane’ach on the Haggadah, a commentary on Pirkei d’Rabbi Eliezer, and Sodot HaMitzvot on the reasons of the commandments. He was niftar in Peñafiel, in the upper Duero (Spain, near Portugal), after the year 5065/1305.