Note 33 — II.

13. The Sohar contains whole passages which Moses de Leon translated into Aramaic, from his other works, as the learned Jellinek has demonstratively proved. To transfer these passages here would occupy too much of our space. We must, therefore, refer the reader to the monograph itself,33 and shall only give one example, which the erudite historian, Dr. Graetz,34 has pointed out. In his Sephar Ha-Rimon (‏ספר הרימון‎), which he composed A.D. 1827, and which is a Kabbalistic explanation of the Mosaic precepts, Moses de Leon endeavours to account for the non-occurrence of the Tetragrammaton in the history of the hexahemeron, whilst it does occur immediately afterwards, by submitting that as the earthly world is finite and perishable, this divine name, which denotes eternity, could not be used at the creation thereof; for if it had been created under its influence, the world would have been as imperishable as this name. In corroboration of this, Moses de Leon quotes the passage (‏לכו חזו מפעלות אלהים אשר שם שמות בארץ‎) Come, behold the works of Elohim, what perishableness he made in the earth ( Ps. xlvi, 8 ), showing that ‏שמות‎ destruction, perishableness, is consonant with the name ‏אלהים‎. In looking at the original, it will be seen that the text has ‏יהוה‎ and not ‏אלהים‎, and that Moses de Leon, by a slip of memory, confounded this passage with ‏לכו וראו מפעלות אלהים‎ Come and see the works of Elohim ( Ps. xlvi, 5 ). Now, the whole explanation and the same blunder are transferred into the Sohar. The commentators on this treasury of the Kabbalah, not knowing the cause of this blunder, express their great surprise that the Sohar should explain a mis-quotation. We subjoin the two passages in parallel columns.