Moses Botarel
Encyclopedia
Moses Botarel was a Spanish
Spain
Spain , officially the Kingdom of Spain languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Spain's official name is as follows:;;;;;;), is a country and member state of the European Union located in southwestern Europe on the Iberian Peninsula...

 scholar who lived in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries. He was a pupil of Jacob Sefardi (the Spaniard), who instructed him in the Kabbala
Kabbala
Kabbala may refer to:*Kabbalah, is a religious philosophical system claiming an insight into divine nature*Sefer ha-Qabbalah by Abraham ibn Daud*Kabbala Denudata , a book from Christian Knorr von Rosenroth, a Christian Hebraist...

.

Moses studied medicine and philosophy; the latter, he regarded as a divine science which teaches the same doctrines as the Cabala, using a different language and different terms to designate the same objects. He extolled Aristotle
Aristotle
Aristotle was a Greek philosopher and polymath, a student of Plato and teacher of Alexander the Great. His writings cover many subjects, including physics, metaphysics, poetry, theater, music, logic, rhetoric, linguistics, politics, government, ethics, biology, and zoology...

 as a sage, applying to him the Talmudic sentence, "A wise man is better than a prophet," and he censured his contemporaries for keeping aloof from the divine teachings of philosophy. He believed in the efficacy of amulets and cameos, and declared that he was able to combine the names of God for magical purposes, so that he was generally considered a sorcerer. He stated that by means of fasting, ablution, and invocation of the names of God and of the angels prophetic dreams could be induced. He also stated that the prophet Elijah had appeared to him and appointed him as Messiah
Messiah
A messiah is a redeemer figure expected or foretold in one form or another by a religion. Slightly more widely, a messiah is any redeemer figure. Messianic beliefs or theories generally relate to eschatological improvement of the state of humanity or the world, in other words the World to...

. In this role he addressed a circular letter to all the rabbis, asserting that he was able to solve all perplexities, and asking them to send all doubtful questions to him. In this letter (printed by Dukes in Orient, Lit. 1850, p. 825) Botarel refers to himself as a well-known and prominent rabbi, a saint, and the most pious of the pious. Many believed in his miracles, including the philosopher Hasdai Crescas
Hasdai Crescas
Hasdai ben Judah Crescas was a Jewish philosopher and a renowned halakhist...

.

Botarel was one of those who attended the disputation at Tortosa
Tortosa
-External links:* *** * * *...

 (1413–1414), and he is said to have written a polemic against Geronimo de Santa Fe
Gerónimo de Santa Fe
Jerónimo de Santa Fe was a Spanish physician and religious writer who after conversion to Catholicism, wrote in Latin as Hieronymus de Sancta Fide ....

. In 1409, at the request of the Christian
Christian
A Christian is a person who adheres to Christianity, an Abrahamic, monotheistic religion based on the life and teachings of Jesus of Nazareth as recorded in the Canonical gospels and the letters of the New Testament...

 scholar Maestro Juan, Botarel composed a commentary on the Sefer Yezirah. In the preface, he excuses himself for having revealed the divine mysteries of this work to Maestro Juan by quoting the saying of the sages that a non-Jew who studies the Torah is equal to a high priest. In his commentary, he quotes earlier cabalistic works, including some ascribed to the old authorities, such as the amora Rav Ashi. Botarel's commentary on the Sefer Yeẓirah was printed at Mantua in 1562, with the text and with other commentaries; it was republished at Zolkiev, 1745; Grodno, 1806; and Wilna, 1820.

This Moses Botarel is not Moses ben Leon Botarel, who lived at Constantinople
Constantinople
Constantinople was the capital of the Roman, Eastern Roman, Byzantine, Latin, and Ottoman Empires. Throughout most of the Middle Ages, Constantinople was Europe's largest and wealthiest city.-Names:...

 in the 16th century and wrote the En Mishpat, containing predictions and being a free paraphrase of a Latin
Latin
Latin is an Italic language originally spoken in Latium and Ancient Rome. It, along with most European languages, is a descendant of the ancient Proto-Indo-European language. Although it is considered a dead language, a number of scholars and members of the Christian clergy speak it fluently, and...

 work of Michael Nostradamus.

Jewish Encyclopedia bibliography

  • Adolf Jellinek
    Adolf Jellinek
    ----Adolf Jellinek |Drslavice]], nearby Uherské Hradiště, Moravia - December 28, 1893, Vienna) was an Austrian rabbi and scholar...

    , Biographische Skizzen, in Orient, Lit. 1846, pp. 187–189;
  • N. Brüll, in Ha-Maggid, 1878, pp. 198–199;
  • Heinrich Graetz
    Heinrich Graetz
    Heinrich Graetz was amongst the first historians to write a comprehensive history of the Jewish people from a Jewish perspective....

    , Geschichte viii. 98;
  • idem, in Monatsschrift, 1879, pp. 78–83;
  • Steinschneider, Jewish Literature, pp. 110, 128;
  • idem, Cat. Bodl. cols. 1780-1783.
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